Blonde Ice

by R. G. Belsky

  “Her name is Susan Endicott.”

  “Okay.”

  “The once and possibly future Mrs. Gil Malloy.”

  “How did you wind up with her again? I thought she decided to divorce you.”

  “I’m appealing that decision.”

  Wohlers shook his head.

  “Look on the bright side, Lieutenant—I identified the Blonde Ice killer for you. You know who you’re looking for now. The way I see it you should be thanking me. I came to you with a critical bit of information to assist your investigation.”

  “Yes, only after you made sure you timed it so you could break the story first in the News, before we got a chance to tell anyone else.”

  “Well, that was the point, wasn’t it?” I said.

  I figured I had nothing to do at that moment but give him the corned beef, which is what I did.

  “Does that help at all?” I asked him.

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  * * *

  After Wohlers consumed most of the corned beef and calmed down a bit, I told him about a theory I’d been pursuing ever since my Claudia Borrell exclusive broke.

  “Claudia Borrell assumed the identity—and presumably killed—a psychiatrist named Kate Lyon, who graduated from Temple University and then set up her practice in Philadelphia. In order to do that, Borrell must have been in Philadelphia. Probably living there for a while too.”

  “So you think she was killing people in Philadelphia?”

  “That’s my theory. I went through a lot of unsolved homicides in the Philadelphia area over the past few years. I eliminated from consideration any cases in which the victims were shot to death. None of Claudia Borrell’s victims had been killed with a gun. It was always stabbing, beating to death, strangulation, or some combination of all of those things. A gun seemed too impersonal for her. She wanted to feel them die, not just watch them. I pinpointed three murders.”

  I went through them with Wohlers. One was a twenty-one-year-old college football star and self-admitted ladies’ man found beaten and strangled in his car after leaving a Center City club where he’d been seen hitting on a sexy blonde. Another was a Princeton professor beaten to death with a baseball bat at his home while his wife was out of town—and he was seen running around with another woman. Then there was a family in Langhorne—about fifteen miles outside Philadelphia—that was brutally murdered in their home. The husband, wife, and their two sons were all found with their throats slit—apparently while they slept. Nothing was taken from the home, and there was no sign of any personal disputes between members of the family and people who knew them. The more likely scenario was that an intruder had done it, for some unknown reason.

  “The Princeton professor and the college football player in Center City definitely fit the criteria—guys fooling around with other women,” I said to Wohlers. “The family in Langhorne was just too similar to what happened to Claudia Borrell’s own family years ago to ignore. Was there something about this family that reminded her of her own family? Or was there something else at work here, some other reason, she might have decided to kill them? They all died in their sleep, just like the Borrell family. And the makeup of the family was the same—a husband, wife, and two sons who died. That seems like more than just a coincidence.”

  He looked down at the list and shook his head. “You might be onto something,” he said.

  “There could be even more in other parts of the country,” I told him. “Any unsolved murder of a man who was killed this way after fooling around with other women, we’ve got to look at Borrell now as a possible suspect. There’s no telling how many men she might have killed.”

  CHAPTER 43

  NOTHING about Claudia Borrell fits the pattern of a serial killer,” Vincent D’Nolfo said.

  “When did you suddenly become an expert on serial killers?”

  “I took a college course on serial killers.”

  “Really?”

  “Bernard Baruch School of Criminal Justice. I’ve been going there at night while I’ve been in the academy. They’ve got some interesting courses there. This one was called: Serial Killer Syndrome: Motivation, Causes, and Answers.”

  We were sitting at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village. The same coffee shop where I’d first gone with Abbie Kincaid, the TV star D’Nolfo had been a bodyguard for before she was murdered. Sometimes I went back there to eat. Why? I wasn’t sure. But it had become a kind of ritual for me. I guess because it brought back nice memories about Abbie. I’d mentioned it to D’Nolfo, who said he’d like to join me.

  “First off,” D’Nolfo said, “we have a serial killer who’s a woman. That’s almost unheard of. Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper—almost all the famous serial killers were men who killed women. This is a woman who kills men.”

  “I am woman, hear me roar,” I smiled.

  “I’m not sure that’s exactly what the feminist movement has in mind when they demand equality with men.”

  “So what could have set her off on the path to become a cold-blooded female serial killer of men?”

  “Well, the first—and most obvious—possibility is that she was abused in some way by her father as a child, developed a hatred for all men, and now gets satisfaction—possibly even sexual satisfaction—out of killing men. Every time she kills a man, she kills her father all over again. And that makes her feel good. The father was the motivation.”

  “Except there’s no evidence that the father ever did anything to her. Everyone said he was a good guy. A good dad. No one really knows what goes on inside a house, but still there’s no indication whatsoever that Claudia Borrell had anything other than a happy, normal home environment as a child.”

  “And so that brings us to the second possibility.”

  “Which is?”

  “There was no specific motivation for her actions.”

  “C’mon, people don’t kill other people for no reason at all.”

  “Actually they do. In this case, we could be talking about someone who has no sense of right or wrong; no moral compass; no conscience. Someone who kills simply for the sake of killing. A thrill so powerful, so overpowering that it probably even surpassed the thrill of sex for her. There’s historically been a sexual component to most serial killers. What’s happened here is we have a woman serial killer displaying these same behavioral traits. A serial killer with a tremendous intellect. A genius. She was so far ahead of anyone in her class back in Illinois that she didn’t belong in that school. She could have gone to college right then. She could have used her enormous intelligence capacity for anything. Instead, she used it to become a cold-blooded killing machine.”

  “What about the first victim—the boy from her school?” I asked.

  “I think that was a practice kill,” D’Nolfo said. “To see if she could do it. To make sure the reality lived up to the fantasy. So she killed Bobby Jenkins. He was a test. After that, she was ready for her next goal. To wipe out her own family.”

  “Then why did she walk into a police station afterward and confess? A brief bit of remorse?”

  “Hardly. Like I said, this is probably a woman without remorse or conscience or any of the traits that stop most of us from doing terrible things. She liked the killings that she did. She was proud of them. That’s why she confessed and gave herself up back then. She wanted everyone to know that she did it. More importantly, she wanted everyone to know she could get away with it. She knew she could escape afterward.”

  “How could she be so sure of that?”

  “My theory? Because she believes she can do anything. She believes she’s smarter and more resourceful than anyone. And she’ll keep on believing that until the day we finally catch her.”

  “A cold-blooded serial killer who doesn’t fit the pattern of any other serial killer,” I grunted. “So we can’t figure out what the hell she might do next or why. That’s just great. . . .”

  “There is one thing about this particular serial killer t
hat does run according to form. Serial killers generally kill in sprees. Sometimes they’ll go months, even years without killing. Then, unless they’re caught, they start up again. That’s what Claudia Borrell has done. There was the spree early when she was young in Illinois. And now the spree here in New York. In between, not so much.”

  “We think there were more killings, we just don’t know about them yet,” I pointed out.

  “Probably were. But still that would not be the same kind of murder spree. She would have carried out those murders quietly, without drawing any attention to herself. Now, for some reason, she’s upping her profile. She’s turned herself into front page news. She’s taunting us, playing games with us and the press, practically daring us to try to catch her. The same way the most infamous male serial killers have done in the past.”

  “So what do we do next?”

  “Try to find out why she started the killing spree again. That might be the best chance to catch her.”

  * * *

  On that first night I’d come to this coffee shop with Abbie, D’Nolfo had waited outside in his car. I was glad of that at the time. I didn’t like D’Nolfo very much then. I reminded him of that now.

  “I didn’t like you either. I thought you were a wiseass with a big mouth who was very annoying.”

  “And now you realize you were wrong, huh?”

  “No, I’ve just gotten used to it. Besides, I realized you had some pretty good qualities underneath all that crap. And, well . . . most of all, you did right by Abbie.”

  We sat there silently for a while, lost in our own thoughts about Abbie Kincaid—who had played such a big role in our lives before her own was cut tragically short. She’d been murdered by her ex-boyfriend in a senseless slaying that happened while she was pursuing a sensational story. I’d finished the story after her death and found out who murdered her.

  The whole thing had hit D’Nolfo particularly hard because he felt guilty for allowing her to be killed, even though there was nothing he could have done to stop it. He drifted from one security job to another after that until the police academy opportunity came along. I hoped it would work out for him.

  “So do you think they’ll catch this Blonde Ice woman?” I asked.

  “Yes. She’ll make a mistake sooner or later. No matter how brilliant she is.”

  We stood up to leave.

  “By the way,” I asked D’Nolfo, “this course you took on serial killers—what kind of a grade did you get on it?”

  “I got an A,” he said.

  “That’s good,” I smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  CHAPTER 44

  LIKE D’Nolfo had said, the big question was “Why?” Why did Claudia Borrell suddenly go public with this killing spree now? There had to be a reason—some common denominator that tied everything together.

  Well, there was me—she’d sought me out to talk to the media about the murders.

  Then there was Bob Wylie, who was with me on Live from New York when she came on the air to announce to him a new murder; who’d gone out with Melissa Ross’s biological mother back in Munson Lake, Ohio; and whose closest friend and ally, Tim Hammacher, had been one of the victims.

  But there was something else too.

  Another thread running through all this.

  Houston.

  The first victim was Houston’s husband. I was the reporter who became famous—or infamous—for writing about Houston. And Wylie used to be a client of Houston. So Houston must have some ­significance—had to be some kind of a trigger—to the Blonde Ice killings.

  * * *

  Victoria Issacs—the woman who used to be Houston—was still living at the Sutton Place townhouse.

  Her children were both with her this time. Two little girls—eleven and seven. The eleven-year-old had blonde hair and looked like a young version of her mother. The seven-year-old’s hair was darker, but she was very cute too. Both of them were going to grow up to be real beauties. The older one was playing a game on a tablet while the younger one watched a cartoon show on TV.

  She introduced me to them. They greeted me with the kind of bored indifference kids that age have to adults they don’t know or particularly care about. Of course, they’d lost their father. And gone through a lot more with the sudden notoriety of their mother and the battle with the grandparents over custody. I wondered how much impact this had on kids that young. My assumption was a lot. And it might be emotional baggage they’d have to carry with them through the rest of their lives.

  She told the kids to go upstairs to their rooms so she could talk to me.

  “Walter’s parents gave up on the custody fight,” she told me when they were gone. “In the end, I think they realized that a mother’s right to be with her children trumped theirs—no matter what they thought of me and no matter what scandalous things they say that I might have done.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “But they’re selling this house, so I’ll have to move.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Not really. I found a nice place on the West Side for us to live. My attorney was able to get me some substantial money from Walter’s estate. So we’ll be good financially.”

  She also told me how the Houston name—which she had tried to hide for a long time—was helping her again now. She said a fashion company wanted to make a Houston line of sexy lingerie and sleepwear. Plus, she had an offer to appear as Houston on a TV reality show in the fall.

  As she talked, I couldn’t help but notice how great she looked. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a skimpy white halter top that showed off a lot of her body. I tried to keep my mind on the conversation, but I kept drifting back to her. I had a feeling she knew that and enjoyed the effect she had on me.

  So why not push for a little more with Houston? She was a single woman now. I wasn’t married. Except I knew that was not going to happen. No, that wasn’t why I had come to see her.

  “I’ve got a problem,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your story doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did Claudia Borrell find out you were Houston?”

  “Someone must have told her.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, I said I ran into some of my former clients from time to time. I suppose one of them could have said something to someone . . .”

  I shook my head no.

  “They had as much to lose as you being connected with Houston. All of them, especially Wylie. So that doesn’t work as an explanation of how Borrell knew about you.”

  She looked at me impassively, as if she had no idea what I was going to say next. But she knew. She’d probably known I was going to show up at her door again ever since she read my story about Claudia Borrell, aka Dr. Kate Lyon.

  “Nevertheless, there was no way she could have known you were Houston unless someone told her. You were the only person besides me that knew. You insisted that you had never told anyone. And I didn’t tell anybody. Or at least I didn’t think I did. Then I realized that I did tell someone. I shared that information with my psychiatrist, the woman I’m seeing for therapy. Did you share it with your therapist too, Mrs. Issacs?”

  She sat there for a long time without saying anything, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Yes.”

  “And that therapist was Dr. Kate Lyon?”

  Another nod.

  “The real one or Claudia Borrell?”

  “The real one.”

  She told me the story then. I like to think she would have done that anyway. She said she wanted to do that from the minute she read my article about Claudia Borrell assuming the identity of Kate Lyon. Maybe that was true. But, in the end, I had to do what I do as a reporter in order to find the connection between Houston and Claudia Borrell. Follow the trail of evidence until it gave me the answers I needed.


  “Taking that money from Bob Wylie made me realize how much I missed being Houston. Having a man pay me because he thought I was desirable. I was having difficulties adjusting to being a wife, adjusting to being a mother, just adjusting in general to leaving my Houston persona behind. It was a dramatic readjustment from the life I had lived. I know that I made it all sound like a fairy tale when I told it to you that first day you tracked me down here. But it wasn’t. I was unhappy. So I started seeing Dr. Lyon.”

  “Here in New York?”

  “No, she was in Philadelphia.”

  “Why would you go to Philadelphia to see a therapist?”

  “She was a specialist in women’s empowerment. And that was what I wanted to feel again—empowered. I felt powerful when I was Houston. But now I was simply Mrs. Walter Issacs. I looked around at therapists and she seemed to be the one that could help me the most. So I went to Philadelphia to see her. Every week I took the Acela train down there. It was nice actually, a pleasant ride and it felt good to get away from New York. Plus, I liked the idea of seeing a therapist in another city. I didn’t want to take a chance on any of my friends finding out what I was doing. There was always the possibility I could run into someone I knew by going to a therapist’s office here in New York City.”

  “What was the original Dr. Lyon like?”

  “She was very supportive, insightful, she had a lot of empathy for me and my situation. We delved into my life and my past to talk about reasons for my discontent.”

  “So you told her about being Houston?”

  “Yes.”

  “About your life as Houston?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Even the stuff you told me about your relationship with Bob Wylie in New York?”

  “I told her everything.”

  “And your husband knew nothing about your past?”

  “No.”

  “No one else either?”

  “Just Dr. Lyon.”

  I wanted to be mad at her for lying to me when she assured me she’d never told anyone else about being Houston. But, like I said, I’d done the same thing. I claimed I hadn’t told anyone else either, but I’d certainly divulged it during my sessions with Dr. Landis. I guess you never think about your shrink when you promise to keep a secret. You’re supposed to tell them everything.