The Strangler (14 page)

25

Michael worked through the afternoon, through dinner, through most of the evening at the Strangler Bureau, which was located in the state capitol building on Beacon Hill. He had set himself the task of combing through the murder books again, for details that DeSalvo had got wrong in his confession. DeSalvo’s confession was bogus. The more Michael thought about it, the more certain he became. It was not just that DeSalvo was wrong on the facts; his tone was wrong. Too eager, too quick to please. Too grandiose and expansive—the telltale exuberant falseness of a bullshitter. Wamsley had bought it, but maybe it was not too late. Maybe Michael could bring his boss around.

“Hey.”

Michael looked up to see Amy standing in his office doorway. She was still wearing her work dress. Her coat was draped over her arms. She slipped the heel of her foot out of her shoe and back in—tired, achy feet after a long day.

“Don’t you people lock your doors?”

“Don’t have to. We’re the cops. Who would steal from the cops?”

“Me. Some of those files out there…Imagine the headline: ‘From the Secret Files of the Strangler Bureau.’”

He groaned.

“No, no—‘From the Desk of Top Cop Michael Daley.’” She laughed.

“Alright, alright, I’ll lock the door. I didn’t know I was alone.”

“What are you working on?”

“I’d rather not say. You know, to a reporter.”

“Ah. Sounds fascinating. Well, I’m not just a reporter. I’m family too, right?”

“You’re shameless.”

“Can’t help it. It’s a job requirement.”

“Well, at the moment you can’t be both. If you’re a reporter, I have to keep my mouth shut.” Michael dropped a stack of photos on the desk. “I wish I could talk, believe me.”

“Okay, then. I’m not a reporter. What’s wrong, Michael?” Amy had to remind herself over and over that Michael was different from his brothers, easier to read, more exposed than Ricky, easier to wound than Joe.

“Amy, if I knew something, something that could maybe be dangerous…”

“Knew what?”

“Never mind. Forget it.”

“Tell me. What’s the big secret?”

He dodged the question. “I don’t know how you do this, look at this gore every day.”

“You keep your distance.”

“What if that doesn’t work?”

“You make it work. Michael, what is it?”

He shook his head.

“Come on, how bad can it be?”

A beat.

He regarded her. “DeSalvo’s not the Strangler.”

Another beat.

She said, “How could you know that for sure?”

“The confession was a travesty. Wamsley practically fed him the answers, and he still got half his facts wrong. If you’d been there, you’d understand. DeSalvo isn’t a murderer. He’s got a short record. No prior history of rape or assault, barely any violence at all until these new charges in Cambridge. And there’s no physical evidence linking him to any of the stranglings—blood, fingerprints, witnesses, nothing. I could make a stronger case against a half dozen other guys than I can against DeSalvo, confession or no confession.”

“What about the other people there? Did they believe him?”

“Not the cops. Just Wamsley. Unfortunately it’s his call to make. George has always thought there’s only one strangler. Now he thinks he’s found him. Probably he’s scared shitless of not solving the case or of trying it to a not-guilty. That’d be his epitaph, and he knows it: the man who let the Boston Strangler get away.”

“Could be yours, too, if you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong.”

Amy nodded.

“At least I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“So if DeSalvo’s not the Strangler, who is?”

“Nast maybe. Maybe someone we’ve never heard of. I don’t know.”

“Jesus. So what do you do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you say nothing, and some other girl gets killed while DeSalvo is still locked up, then what? Could you live with yourself?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a lot of I-don’t-knows.”

“I know.”

Amy smiled. “You know what your dad said to me once? A cop with a bad conscience is the worst kind of cop, because he knows better.”

“I don’t have a bad conscience.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

“What do you think I should do, Amy?”

“You’ll think I’m selfish.”

“Probably.”

“You have to tell. If the Strangler’s really still out there, if you really believe that, then you have to let people know. Otherwise, what will you say to the next girl’s mother when she asks why you knew about the danger but did nothing to stop it?”

“So who do I tell? The cops know already.”

“Keep telling them, I guess.”

“And what if no one listens?”

“Then what else can you do? Tell a reporter.”

“Hm. If only I knew one.”

“I could keep your name out of it. Call you a ‘highly placed, reliable source,’ something like that.”

“They’d know. I already told Wamsley to his face. He knows how I feel.”

“Well, you think about it, Michael. That’s a hell of a secret to have to carry around. I couldn’t do it.”

“No? Will you keep it secret, Amy? You’re not going to write this?”

She smiled again but did not answer. “Can I tell you something, Michael? Of the three of you boys, I like you best.”

“That’s not exactly what I asked you.”

“I mean it. I like you best.”

“Great. I’ll be sure to tell Ricky.”

“You’re the best one. You’ll make the right decision. I’m not so sure the other two would. But you? You’re
good
.”

“You’re manipulating me.”

“Maybe. But I’m not lying.”

He thought it over. “Fuck it. Go ahead and write it. What the hell. I liked it better in Eminent Domain anyway.”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“We’ll see.”

“You know, there’s something I need to talk about, too. A family thing.”

“Ricky?”

“No. Brendan.”

“I thought you said family.”

Amy sat down. She put her coat aside, slid forward, and laid her forearm on the desk. “Michael, we’ve never really talked about this.”

He avoided her eyes to muffle the little thrill of Amy, her directness, the outlandish possibility of a frank conversation about his family, the intimate pleasure of a shared confidence. She was so close. So close.

Amy wiggled further forward, to the very edge of her seat. “You don’t like Brendan.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“Do you think Brendan did something wrong?”

“Wrong like what?”

“You know what I mean. Be honest.”

“I just don’t like him hanging around my mother, that’s all.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough.”

“Michael, I need to tell you something. I see how you act around Brendan. I know how you feel; I don’t like him either. I never trusted him, never wanted him around you three boys, and I certainly never wanted him anywhere near your mother. If he ever lifted a finger to her, I swear I’d kill him. Your dad had Brendan pegged.”

“Pegged as what?”

“A cop with a bad conscience.”

“So,” he demanded, “what’s the big secret about Brendan?” He imagined Amy had in mind some petty corruption Brendan might have indulged in. The sort of Boston mischief that only the newspapers cared about—and even they did not care much.

“Michael, what do you think about the way your father was killed?”

“I’m against it.”

“I’m serious, dammit. Do you believe it happened the way Brendan says it did?”

“Why not?”

“Two experienced cops, Homicide detectives, go searching for a suspect. They go down to the docks in East Boston looking for a witness, some street kid who lives there, twelve, thirteen years old. They find the kid, he runs, they chase. Kid squirts down an alley, Joe Senior runs in after him while Brendan lags behind. Joe Senior turns the corner, kid shoots him once, in the chest—and Joe Senior is dead, bullet in the heart. Now Brendan hears the shot and, disregarding his own safety, he barrels around the corner, too, to help his partner. Kid shoots a second time, hits Brendan in the gut, and Brendan goes down, again with a single shot. Kid takes off.”

“That’s the story.”

“Do you believe it?”

“It happens.”

“Do you know how hard it is to kill a man with a handgun, with one shot, on the run? It’s hard even to disable someone with one bullet. It’s John Wayne stuff—bang, you’re dead. Only in the movies. The fact is, to kill a man with one shot you need to be very lucky or very accurate. You have to hit the head or the heart. That’s not easy when you’re both running in a panic. But this young kid puts two cops down with just two shots, on the move, killing one? Doesn’t sound right.”

“So he got lucky.”

“Twice?”

“It happens.”

“Not like that. Once is lucky. Twice? Impossible.”

She looked Michael square in the eyes until he looked away.

“And another thing: why didn’t Brendan get up and run after the kid? Why’d he let the kid get away?”

“Because he was shot. He nearly died in the hospital.”

“That was later. Internal bleeding, then an infection. Those are complications. Neither was true when he was lying there, letting that kid run right past him.

“Then, when the Homicide guys interviewed Brendan in the hospital, he gives them nothing. Just a vague description: skinny, teenage, Negro. When in doubt, just say the magic word ‘Negro’ and the Boston PD goes running.”

“They’d never seen the kid before. They were following a tip. What do you expect?”

“I expect an experienced cop like Brendan Conroy would have described the kid better. A cop is a professional witness. If it really went down the way Brendan says it did, he’d have done better than some faceless mystery Negro. Besides, how is it that no one else saw the kid? Come on—a Negro kid in that neighborhood would have stuck out like a raisin in a bowl of milk. So where is he? How come they never found him?”

“Okay, I give up. So who’s the kid who shot him?”

Her response was a simple, level look.

“The Negro kid?”

“Michael. There is no kid.”

“So who…?”

“Brendan. It was Brendan.”

“You sure it wasn’t Oswald?”

“Michael, this didn’t just come to me. I’ve been digging into it for a year.”

“So where’s the gun? If Brendan and my dad were alone in that alley, where’s the gun? They never found it.”

“Brendan could have dumped the gun anywhere. He had plenty of time.”

“Okay, so if Brendan shot my dad, who shot Brendan?”

“Brendan shot your dad, then himself.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Michael, did you know Brendan once shot a suspect in the side, right here”—she pointed to her side, just above the hip bone—“and the bullet passed right through, in and out, barely slowed the guy down at all. I have the file.”

“But Brendan was shot right in the gut, here, not here.”

“It’s not so easy to shoot yourself accurately. Not if your goal is to survive. The bullet entered Brendan’s body on a slightly downward trajectory, moving from his right to his left—just as it would if Brendan was holding the gun in his right hand. His shirt was singed by the discharge, he was shot at such close range. A few feet at the most. If Brendan weren’t a cop, they’d have thrown out his whole story based on just the physical evidence.”

“How about the motive? Brendan and my old man were best friends for twenty years. They were like brothers. Why would Brendan want to kill him? Lust for Margaret Daley? Greed for the Daley fortune?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out. Yet.”

“Wow.” Michael sighed.

“I know. Wow.”

“No, I mean, ‘Wow, you’re a lunatic.’”

“It sounds crazy, I know. But look, you’re the only one I can tell, Michael. Ricky would think I’m insane, and Joe would just kill Brendan with no questions asked. You’re the only one I can talk to. Tell me you believe me. Tell me at least you’ll think about it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. That’s a start.”

“So what’ll you do next?”

“What would you do, Michael?”

“Tell, I guess. Tell Mum, at least. If she’s climbing into bed every night with her husband’s murderer…”

“She’ll never believe it.”

“No. She won’t.”

Amy smiled.

Oh, she was close!

“Look, Michael, I’m going to go write up that DeSalvo story, if you’re still willing. It’s not too late. I’ll get it in for tomorrow. We’ll talk about this later?”

“Sure.”

She got up to leave. “You know, I meant what I said. You really are the good one.”

He said nothing. Just looked at her.

“See you later, Michael.”

The next morning’s
Observer
blared “Tec in Strangle Probe Voices Doubt.” Arthur Nast’s grainy mug shot appeared on page one, right next to DeSalvo’s. The story carried the familiar joint byline of Amy Ryan and Claire Downey. It was sourced to “a highly placed official speaking on condition of anonymity.”

It was the last story Amy Ryan ever wrote.

26

There was a particular sort of hallucination Michael often experienced in a migraine aura. The effect was like a mosaic—as if the scene before him had been painted on a pane of glass, and the glass was then cracked. Seams and disjunctions threaded the image. The tiles shivered and slid across one another, misalignments were created and repaired. It was the world as Picasso painted it: fractured, tessellated, the solid surface of reality revealed as it really was, fissile and impossibly complex.

This was how Michael saw the scene of Amy Ryan’s murder. His mind smashed the image.

Her red hair tousled, eyes closed, head slumped on a naked shoulder.

Arms spread, tied at either side of the headboard.

Two or three tan stockings braided into a single springy cord, wrapped around her neck so tightly that it was pinched into a distinct hourglass shape. Beneath her Adam’s apple the stockings were tied off in a big drooping bow—the Strangler’s signature.

Face mottled with bruises and blood.

A clear mucous fluid, probably semen, trailed from her mouth onto her bare chest.

Pale naked stomach, muscled, the taut skin creased where her body bent.

Auburn pubic hair, a broom handle rammed in her vagina, a delta of blood on the sheet between her bare legs.

Red-stained panties on the floor by the bed.

A small dining table overturned, papers spilled onto the floor.

A photo in a silver frame of Amy and Ricky kissing.

Michael stood in the doorway of the bedroom, dazed, frozen. Cops, a forensics technician, and a photographer bustled around him. Occasionally they moved him a step or two in this or that direction so he would not be in the way. “Oh my God,” Michael whispered, “ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod…” He covered his brow with one hand as if he were shielding his eyes from the sun.

“Somebody get this guy out of here,” a testy voice said.

“Come on, Mikey, we got to go.”

Michael felt the weight of Joe’s arm on his back.

“Come on, little brother. Don’t let ’em see you like this.”

“I did this, Joe.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“I told her about DeSalvo. She came to my office, we talked. I didn’t think…”

“You didn’t do nothin’, Mikey, you hear me?”

“No, Joe, it’s my fault.”

“No, you listen. Whoever did this, we’ll find him. When the time comes, we’ll take care of it. We’ll do what we’ve got to do when the time comes. But right now you’ve got to get a grip, Mikey, you’ve got to maintain—maintain. There’s things we got to do right now.”

“Jesus, Joe.”

“You think you’re the only one Amy ever got a tip from? She was doing her job, you were doing yours. That’s all.”

Michael stared at the body. Crucified, pornographic, obscene.

“Don’t look, Mikey. Come on, we got to get out of here.”

But Michael could not move. He slouched against Joe. It occurred to him that he had never been this close physically to his brother, except when they had fought, one of Joe’s headlocks.

“Come on, stand up. We’ve got to find Ricky. We’re gonna walk out of here now. Don’t look at her, Mikey. Look the other way. Come on, you ready?” Joe laid a hand on his shoulder. He said, as much to himself as to Michael, “We’ve got to find Ricky.”

They careened across Cambridge in Joe’s Olds Eighty-Eight. Michael was aware, remotely, that they were going too fast, that it was dangerous, but Joe’s driving was part of the dream—of hurtling ahead barely under control, and at the same time of being at a still point in the center of all that motion, like John Glenn in his space capsule. And if Joe slipped, if the car crashed into a tree or an oncoming truck? Wouldn’t matter, Michael thought. His head bobbled with the movement of the car. Back there, in front of Amy’s tortured body, Michael had felt something trembling in that room, about to shiver through. An idea, a presence. A sense of understanding. But he could not quite pull in the signal. He could not understand it. And now whatever epiphany might have come was gone. Now the whole thing had no significance at all. It was stupid, pointless savagery, nothing more. He thought:
Go ahead, Joe, drive us into a tree. I’m curious.

Ricky took the news like a punch. For a moment he questioned it. Maybe his brothers were playing some dumb, deeply unfunny joke. Or a mistake. They must have made some mistake. But after that he did not protest or wail or collapse. His body stiffened, then swayed on rubbery legs, like a heavyweight who has been socked on the chin and is momentarily unconscious on his feet.

Ricky retreated toward the back of his apartment, down a narrow hallway that connected the living room with the bedroom in back. He wore a pair of old khakis and a yellowed undershirt that hung off his shoulders. His hand trailed along the wall. All that loose-limbed athleticism, the dancer’s litheness that had always marked Ricky’s movements, was gone. Ricky disappeared into the back bedroom.

Joe called down the hall, “You alright, pal?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“We should all head over to Ma’s.”

Michael said, “Come on, grab your things, Ricky. You can stay with me a few days.”

“Nah. No, thanks, Mike. I think I’ll just…” Ricky wandered back into the living room. “You were in her place, Michael? You saw her?”

“Yeah.”

Ricky searched the floor as if he’d dropped something.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry, Rick,” Michael said, embarrassed to fall back on a cliché.

Ricky nodded. He went back down the hallway, and when he reemerged he was buttoning the last few buttons of an oxford shirt. “I gotta go,” he mumbled in a distracted, unapologetic way. He grabbed a jacket from the couch and brushed past them toward the door.

Joe tried to grab his arm. “Hey—”

“Let me alone, Joe. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“We’ll go with you,” Joe said. “We’ll all go.”

“Nah. I’d rather just go myself.”

“It’s okay, Joe. Let him go,” Michael said.

“We should stick together.”

“We are.”

When Ricky got back, he shambled into the living room, tossed away his jacket, and fell onto the couch beside Michael.

“Where’s Joe?”

“He went to tell Mum.”

Ricky nodded. “You know why they killed Kennedy?”

“No.”

“Because they had to. He made too many enemies. Sicced his brother on the Mob, attacked the Cubans, pissed off the Russians, stirred up trouble with the Negroes in Alabama. So they had to get rid of him. See, Lyndon Johnson, he’ll live to be a hundred. Because he’s a compromiser. You don’t need to kill a guy if you can cut a deal with him. You see what I mean?”

“No. Not really.”

“That’s why they killed Amy. It was the only way to shut the woman up.”

“What about the Strangler?”

Ricky gave him a cutting look. “I think we’ve got our own strangler. I’m going to find out who did this.”

“Did she ever tell you anything, a story she was worried about, a witness maybe?”

“No. She knew a lot of lowlifes; she wrote about them. But she wasn’t worried about it. None of them ever did anything. At least she never talked about it.”

“I was the one who gave her the DeSalvo story, you know. She came by.”

“I know. It’s alright, Mikey. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. She didn’t take no for an answer. Besides, she probably had another source.”

Michael made a face:
Bullshit.
He said, “I wish I hadn’t seen her.”

Ricky went into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Jim Beam. “Here. There’s nothing for depression like a depressant.” He handed his brother a glass.

“I’m supposed to be cheering you up.”

“I’m never gonna cheer up, Mikey.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Nah.”

“You will. It takes time.”

“No. Because I don’t want to. I don’t want to ever get over it. So let’s just, you know, drink up.”

Ricky took a drink then turned and stared off into space, and that was that. He was through discussing it.

To Michael, his little brother’s face, in profile, looked weathered. At the corner of Ricky’s eye, the first delicate wrinkles were branching. Ricky Daley was actually getting old. How remarkable. Michael had never noticed the changes. In his mind’s eye, Ricky was always young, always smooth-faced, always the Ricky of his memory.

And the memory of Ricky was a potent one. When they had been kids, and Michael was first coming to realize that we are all trapped in the solitude of our own skins, he had nonetheless always felt linked to Ricky. Now it came home to Michael that both their skins had hardened, and he did not know Ricky at all anymore. More important, Ricky did not know
him
. Not the way he’d used to. So there it was, the human condition, and so what? What was the sense of worrying about it? People were consigned to interior space for a reason—for moments precisely like this one, when they were forced to give up people whom they would rather hang on to. We are built to withstand our losses. The Daleys would survive Amy’s death. What else could they do? They were still alive.

Impulsively, Michael dropped his hand onto the back of Ricky’s. Their stacked hands looked strange, like mating animals. Some old taboo, or a battalion of them, made Michael want to pull his hand away, but he left it there.

Ricky looked down at the two hands. A riffle of uncertainty crossed his face. But he left his hand there, too.