by R. G. Belsky
“All right. But be careful. Be discreet. Be diplomatic. Be . . . well, don’t be your normal self, Gil.”
“Hey, what could possibly go wrong?”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’ll just lay it all out there for him,” I said. “I’ll tell him we need some answers from him. We need the truth about what he knows because this story is going to come out—and it will look better for him if he is cooperating with us. It might get really nasty. But believe me, I’m going to press him as hard as I can.”
“Are you sure about this?” Marilyn asked. “I mean it’s no secret Wylie has been eying you for a position in his administration. We’re all aware of that. If Wylie still gets elected after all this, you might just screw yourself out of that job if you hit him too hard and he survives.”
“I already have a job,” I said.
CHAPTER 34
I HAD another anxiety attack,” I told Dr. Barbara Landis.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said.
“I was home watching TV. The Andy Griffith Show was on one of the cable channels. There was a baking contest or something at the county fair, and Andy and Barney were trying to figure out how to tell Aunt Bee her entry wasn’t good enough to win. You see, Aunt Bee didn’t know how to . . .”
“Mr. Malloy! Stop avoiding the issue and tell me the details of the anxiety attack.”
“Yeah, well . . . I suddenly felt uncomfortable. Started gasping for breath. The room looked like it was spinning around. I was afraid I was going to lose consciousness. I really panicked there for a minute. All the same symptoms I’ve had before. But I haven’t had one of those attacks in a long time. So it really sucked to have it happening all over again.”
“Did you tell anyone about this or seek some kind of medical assistance?”
“No, you’re the first.”
“Why are you telling me about it then?”
“You’re the hotshot shrink who’s supposed to figure out stuff like this.”
“There are many secrets you’ve kept from me in the past, Mr. Malloy. And I’m sure there are other secrets you still are holding on to. You didn’t tell anyone else about this for days. So why are you bringing this up now when you don’t have to? Why not just forget about it and pretend it never happened, like you’ve done so many times in the past?”
“It was probably a mistake to even mention it. No big deal really.”
“Why are you telling me about this now, Mr. Malloy?” she repeated. “I’m going to keep asking you that question until I get an answer.”
I sighed.
“Okay, it’s because in the past I always kind of understood why I was having the anxiety attacks. I was under a lot of stress. In my professional life, my personal life—you name it, I was stressed out with problems. But now everything’s going great for me. I’m back on top at the News, I’m an ace reporter and a TV star. Everyone loves me there, even my two crazy female bosses. Plus, I’m back with Susan again, or at least I’ve got a shot at having a relationship with her for the first time since our marriage ended. I’m on a roll, Dr. Landis. My life is perfect right now. So why did I have another one of those damn anxiety attacks?”
Dr. Landis nodded sympathetically. Like she could relate to the confusion and distress I was going through over this. I wondered if they taught you how to do that in psychiatrist school. The empathy nod. Probably a whole class devoted to learning that nod, right between Mental Health 101 and Dealing with Schizophrenics.
“I think the fact that your life is going so well now is exactly the reason you had the anxiety attack,” Landis said.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does.”
I thought about what she was saying for a moment, and then I realized where she was going with this.
“I’m worried that it won’t last. That everything is too good to be true. Something will happen—or I’ll do something—to screw it all up. Like I did with the original Houston story and my marriage to Susan and all the rest. I’m waiting for something bad to happen. The anxiety attack stemmed from my fears that this was all going to fall apart for me again.”
“That’s right,” Landis said. “You already told me about how you’ve still kept secrets about Houston from your editors at the paper. That could jeopardize your position there if it ever came out, right? And you still don’t know what’s going to happen between you and Susan. I think on some level you don’t believe she will ever really come back and marry you. The brain is a complex thing. When all the insecurities and doubts come together—even in your subconscious, they are overwhelming to you. The anxiety attack was the result of this.” Landis shrugged. “Anyway, that’s my theory. What do you think?”
I groaned and shook my head in frustration.
“You don’t agree with me?” she said
“Actually, it’s a pretty good theory.”
“That’s what they pay us hotshot shrinks to do, Mr. Malloy.”
She almost smiled when she said that. And Dr. Landis hardly ever smiled during a session.
“What can I do about it?” I asked her.
“Well, I noticed you said it happened while you were sitting alone in your apartment watching TV. We’ve talked in the past about your propensity for sitting in front of the TV and brooding about things. How this is very . . .”
“Immature?”
“Yes, immature. You still live like someone in their early twenties—with no stability, no structure to your life outside the office. I’ve said before that you’re a popular guy, but you don’t really seem to have any close friends. You retreat back into that apartment—and use that TV—like it’s some kind of a cave to hide from the rest of the world.”
“You’re saying I should get out more?”
“I’m saying you need to start establishing a more mature lifestyle for yourself than you have now.”
I thought about how to respond to that. There were a lot of ways. But I didn’t want to go with any of them. I was tired of talking about myself, and there were only a few minutes left in our session anyway.
“Did you ever hear this one?” I asked Landis. “A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says he’s obsessed with sex. The psychiatrist shows him an inkblot and asks what he sees. ‘That’s a man and a woman making love,’ the guy says. The psychiatrist shows him a series of other inkblots, but his answer is always the same: ‘That’s a man and a woman making love.’ The psychiatrist says: ‘Well, you really do seem to be obsessed with sex.’ The guy answers: ‘Me? You’re the one who keeps showing me all the dirty pictures.’ ”
Landis smiled again. Really. Two times in one session, that was a record for her. “I look forward to exploring these topics further at our next appointment, Mr. Malloy.”
“Right back at you, Doc,” I said.
CHAPTER 35
I HAD a date with Susan. Well, not just a date. More like a romantic evening all planned out. And—if things went the way I hoped—our evening together wouldn’t end until the sun came up.
Susan had never been to my new apartment since we split up. Any of my new apartments. And I’d only been to her new place once. We always met at restaurants, parks, ball games, or movies when we got together now. I guess it had something to do with us living together for those years in our own place. It just seemed strange for us to be in each other’s home now.
But I had decided to change all that.
I invited her over to my apartment on 36th Street for dinner. We’d have cocktails in my living room overlooking Lexington Avenue. Dinner in my dining area after that. And then . . . well, it was only a few steps to the bedroom, where I planned to rectify the decision I’d made in the bar that night to turn down Susan’s suggestion of sex.
It was the perfect plan.
Flawless. Foolproof. Fail-safe.
And—if I might add—I thought it was awfully mature. How about that, Dr. Landis?
Susan arrived a little after 6
:30. She seemed impressed by my apartment and the fact that I had actually invited her to a sit-down meal there.
“You’re really going to make dinner for me?” she said as we sat with drinks on my couch.
“That I am.”
“What are we having?”
“Roast chicken. Scalloped potatoes. Green beans. Salad.”
“You cooked all this?”
“Ordered out.”
“Oh.”
“Well, that takes some work too.”
I glanced over at the TV.
“Later, I thought we could watch something together on television like we used to.”
“You’re not going to make me watch another Three Stooges marathon, are you?”
“The Stooges were a very underrated comic act. No, I DVR’d a movie. An old one I remember you like. An Affair to Remember.”
“Wow! Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr. That’s a very romantic movie, Gil,” Susan shook her head. “This is quite the little seduction scenario you seem to have worked out for tonight. Think it will work?”
“I’m giving it my best shot,” I smiled.
* * *
While we ate, I went through everything I’d found out about Melissa Ross and her bizarre connection with Bob Wylie. I told Susan about my conversation with Houston too, involving Wylie.
“Are you going to print any of this?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Ask Wylie about it?”
“My next step.”
“That should be interesting.”
“There’s still no indication the guy did anything wrong here. Unless you think patronizing a prostitute is wrong. Well, it is technically illegal. But you know what I’m saying. Wylie is involved somehow in this. But for the life of me I can’t figure out how or why.”
“So Wylie is connected in at least three separate ways to the Blonde Ice killings,” Susan said. “The Houston relationship and the fact that her husband was the first victim. The murder of Tim Hammacher. And now all this about Melissa Ross being the daughter of the woman he once dated—and how Ross died in the same way and the same place as her mother.”
“Thanks for the recap. Any theories?
“Not a one.”
“Me either.”
Later she told me about her divorce. How she and her husband were going to fast-track it through the court system. How they agreed to remain friends even though the marriage was a mistake. How she thought he was a really great guy who would make some woman very happy.
I listened patiently.
I even pretended like I really cared.
I thought that was pretty mature of me too.
“The bottom line is I’m a free woman,” Susan said.
“And I’m a free man.”
She smiled.
“So here we are,” she said.
“Here we are,” I repeated.
Everything was going according to plan. I have no doubt that it would have continued that way too. Except something happened. My cell phone rang. I looked down at the number. I didn’t recognize it. But I had a bad feeling. This was the same thing that had happened the last time the woman I thought then was Melissa Ross had called.
I hit the answer button on my phone.
“Hello again, Gil,” the now-familiar woman’s voice on the other end said. “I’ve got another dumb blonde joke for you:
“Q: What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant?
“A: She said: ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’ ”
I had promised myself I would be ready when the next phone call came. But I wasn’t. This woman scared me on all kinds of different levels.
“Who are you?” I said.
“Well, I’m sure not Melissa Ross,” she laughed.
I gestured to Susan who it was. She looked shocked too. I wrote down the number showing up on my phone and handed it to her. She took out her phone and called her own office and the police with it while I tried to keep the woman talking on the phone for as long as possible.
“Tell me about you and Melissa.”
“Melissa was a great disappointment to me in the end.”
“Because she found out what you were really doing—and didn’t want to help you anymore? Melissa was the one who took the first victim, Walter Issacs, up to the hotel room. She had sex with him. But you killed him. And then killed her too. Why? Was revenge fine with her, but not murder? I guess maybe Melissa just wasn’t as crazy as you, huh? I’ll bet you got really jealous when you found out she’d actually slept with Issacs. How and why exactly did you kill her? And, after she was dead, why go to all the trouble of taking her body out to that lake in Ohio?”
“Poor Melissa Ross,” she laughed. “Killing herself would have been an appropriate ending to all this, don’t you think? She kills all those men. She’s been beaten down and hurt by men so many times in her life, so she carries out her revenge. And then, just as the police finally close in around her, she commits suicide—ending her own tragic life on this planet. Kind of a nice touch, huh? I figured I might be able to fool people for a while. But not you. You’re smart, Gil. Just not smart enough to keep up with me. For instance, I know you’re trying to keep me on the line now while you check out the number I’m calling from. But I’m afraid that won’t be of much help.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Sure, you are.”
“No, wait . . .”
“Don’t worry, Gil. We’ll talk again very soon. But until then, here’s another dumb blonde joke for you.
“Q: Why do men like dumb-blonde jokes?
“A: Because they can understand them.”
She laughed loudly.
“And now, just to make sure no one forgets about me, I’ve got two new victims for you. One is a gift to my old pal, Melissa. A last good deed in her memory. A little payback to her ex-husband. I just didn’t think it was right that he should live when she couldn’t. The other one is . . . well, he just pissed me off. You’ll find them both at Joe Delvecchio’s apartment. Bay Ridge. Brooklyn.”
CHAPTER 36
THE police found two bodies in the apartment of Joe Delvecchio, Melissa Ross’s ex-husband.
Just like the woman on the phone had said.
Delvecchio was tied down to the bed, spread-eagled with his hands and feet handcuffed to the corners, a gag in his mouth—just like the encounter he’d described with his then-wife Melissa Ross. The rest was the same as the other victims. Evidence of severe beatings. Stab wounds. And it appeared he’d been strangled.
The second body was in the bathroom. He looked like he’d died the same way. He was a young guy, in his early twenties, good-looking, with a body that looked like he worked out a lot. Probably thought of himself as a real ladies’ man. Same as with the earlier victims, I couldn’t help but imagine what these two men’s final moments were like—the agony they suffered at the hands of this crazy woman, whoever she was.
“It looks like she killed the guy in the bathroom first,” Wohlers said to me at the scene. I’d gotten there ahead of the police and waited until they broke down the door. Then I’d put a piece up on the Web even before the rest of the media heard anything about it. It’s easy to be first when the killer calls you up at home with her latest body count. “Probably out here in the bedroom. Then she dragged him into the bathtub, went out and picked up Delvecchio, brought him here, and did it all over again with him. A two-fer.”
“She kills one guy while the other body is still in the other room? Wouldn’t Delvecchio have seen the other guy’s body?”
“Probably not until it was too late. Hell, she might have gotten off by bragging to him about the first killing.”
“Who is the first guy?” I asked.
“His name is Mike Jacobson. He’s a fireman, lives around here in Bay Ridge. Hangs out in a bar called Finnegan’s, people there say. Known to flirt with women at the bar. That’s where she must have picked him up. The owner says he remembers him talking to a woman th
ere that night. He thinks he left with her.”
“Any other description of the woman?”
“Just that she was . . .”
“A sexy blonde?”
“Yes.”
It still didn’t make much sense to me. “This guy Jacobson was a fireman, Lieutenant. He must have been in good shape. He had to know how to take care of himself. How does a woman put a man that physically strong in this kind of position? How exactly does she accomplish that?”
“Sex is a powerful weapon against a man,” Wohlers said.
“So you think she somehow uses her sexuality to lure these men into some kind of a situation where she can control them—with restraints or some other way—that leaves them at her mercy?”
“It looks that way.”
The crime lab people said a preliminary check showed no fingerprints, hair, or evidence of any kind left behind by the killer. That didn’t surprise me. The woman hadn’t made that kind of mistake before; there was no reason to think she’d start now.
“What about semen?” I asked.
“None that we could find,” Wohlers said. “Which is strange. There was semen at the scenes of all the other killings.”
“But it was all from the first guy, Issacs,” I said.
“Still, it might mean something . . .”
“Probably just that she ran out of Issacs’s semen.”
“And she didn’t want to get any from these guys here?”
“This isn’t about sex,” I said. “At least not the kind of sex that would make sense to any of us.”
“There’s one more thing,” a lab guy said. “It was underneath the body of the guy on the bed. Someone taped it to his buttocks. We found it when we turned him over.”
It was a picture. A wedding picture of Melissa Ross and Joe Delvecchio. Smiling and looking happily at the camera as they sliced their wedding cake. A typical wedding picture. Except someone had torn this one right down the middle, splitting Delvecchio and Ross up into two separate pieces.
“She told me she wanted to kill him as a final favor to Melissa Ross,” I said, looking at the pieces of the wedding picture. “Damn, this is one sick woman.”
