The Strangler

by William Landay

  “I got brothers, too.”

  “That’s it? Guilt by association?”

  “I just want the statue, is all.”

  “Way past Christmas, isn’t it, Stan?”

  “Christmas’ll be back next year. Unless somebody steals it.”

  “Did you check the pawnshops?”

  “Look, Rick, can we cut the shit? I’m not looking to make a big deal here. This isn’t the Brinks job. I’m not looking to make a pinch. I don’t really give a shit about the case. I just need that statue back, that’s all. This is off the books. Just between you and me. If you could help me out on this one, I’d appreciate it. I got better things to do.”

  “I have your word? As an officer of the law and a Christian?”

  “You have my word as whatever you want.”

  Ricky went to a cabinet, pulled out the statue, and handed it feetfirst to the detective.

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, some of us citizens like to help out our brave men in blue when we can.”

  “Jesus, this thing’s heavy,” Gedaminski said. “What do they make these out of, lead?”

  “It’s the weight of our sins. Haven’t you heard?”

  Gedaminski held the statue at his hip, like a book.

  “Was there something else, Stan? You look like there’s something else on your mind.”

  “I got this other case that’s been bothering me. This hotel robbery at the Copley Plaza. Last November. Somebody took off a jeweler, maybe you heard about it.”

  “Of course I heard about it.”

  “Guy says he lost almost a million bucks. Diamonds.”

  “These guys all lie, Stan, you know that. Whatever they lose, they double it when they put in the claim with the insurance company. It’s a scam. You ought to be investigating those guys. Crooks.”

  “How much you figure the guy really lost?”

  “Stan, come on. How would I know?”

  “See, that’s what I figured. It didn’t look like you. The guy got in by smashing the window. Glass all over the room. I told them, ‘That ain’t Daley. Ricky Daley doesn’t leave clues. He gets in and out without a trace, that’s his M.O.’”

  “Well, thanks. I guess.”

  “Big job, though, and nobody knows anything about it? So then I thought: if I was Ricky Daley, that’s just what I’d do. Smash a window, make a mess. Change it up, you know?”

  “I’d like to help you, Stan. I just don’t know anything about it.”

  “Well, there’s a lot of people from the hotel there, guests and whatever. Let’s hope one of them remembers the guy.”

  “Let’s.”

  Gedaminski held up the little statue. “Thanks for this. I won’t forget it.”

  “Do me a favor: Forget it.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sorry about all this, you know, getting you out of bed before lunch.”

  Ricky showed him to the door. “Hey, Stan, can I ask you something? Why do you bother?”

  “Bother with what?”

  “There’s all these serious things going on out there, women getting strangled and killed—for Christ’s sake, the President just got killed. The whole world’s going to hell, and you’re wasting your time on pissant B-and-E cases. Who does it hurt, anyway? Some lady loses her earrings, so what? The insurance company pays her off, she gets a new pair better than what she lost. Who’s the victim? The insurance company? Those are some of the most profitable corporations on earth. And burglars are the best thing that ever happened to the insurance companies; they convince people they need to keep buying insurance. These people, they’re more likely to get hit by lightning than by a burglar. But every time somebody gets ripped off, ten idiots run out and buy insurance. It’s a victimless crime. Besides, you can’t stop it. Did you hear, last year Castro made burglary a capital crime in Cuba? Know what happened? The burglary rate went up—up. So what’s the point? It’s human nature. You can’t stop it. I mean, I know somebody has to work these cases, somebody has to run around to the pawnshops and get back all the swag and make a pinch here or there to make it look good. But why you? You’re a good cop, Stan, you got a good head. You could go out there and make a difference. Really. Go catch the Strangler. Stop bothering people.”

  Gedaminski’s mouth opened a crack.

  Ricky grinned. “Just kiddin’, Stan. Hey, don’t drop Jesus. He’s fragile.”

  The detective sloped to the door. “They weight it down,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The statue.” He lifted the Nativity figure. “They put a weight inside so it won’t blow away in the wind, in winter, so it won’t fall over and break.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t. It’s a theory.”

  “See, that’s why you’re a good detective. I never could have figured that out.”

  “You’re wrong, you know, all that crap you just said about burglary, about it’s a victimless crime and nobody gets hurt and all that. A crime is a crime. It’s all the same instinct. You look at any violent criminal, you open his probation file, you’ll see old convictions for property crimes.”

  “Not quite the same instinct, though, is it?”

  “This Strangler, what do they know about him? What’s the same in every one of those cases? Two things: He gets in and out of these apartments without using force and without being seen. And when he’s done with these ladies, what does he do before he leaves? He steals. Now what does that sound like to you?”

  “You left out the third thing, Stan: He strangles women.”

  “I’ll make you a bet: when they catch the guy, there’ll be B-and-E’s on his record.”

  “So you figure the Strangler is a burglar.”

  “It’s a theory.”

  23

  There was something about the rubble of the old West End that Joe liked. He could not begin to articulate this pleasure, but he enjoyed it just the same, as some dogs will thump their tails on the floor while listening to music. It made him happy. The demolition kicked up clouds of dust which the wind blew across town. Your eyes burned from it, and at the end of the day your shirt collar and the snot in your handkerchief were black from it. A church, St. Joseph’s, stood alone in the dust bowl. Joe knew the West End mattered somehow, it signified, but signified what? His best guess: it was a reminder that under all this city was dirt, and maybe every once in a while, every century or so, a city needed a good knocking-down. A fresh start. A New Boston, and fuck the old one. Full of rot, the old one was. And wouldn’t it be nice if you could tear yourself down and rebuild from scratch? A new Joe, new and improved. Didn’t work that way. A city you could bulldoze; your past you were stuck with. Your debts, your mistakes, you were stuck with.

  He made it a habit to swing by Wasserman’s grocery every few days. The old Jew wasn’t around much now. Joe worried that something might have happened to him. There were stories about old West Enders who had gone out for a cup of coffee and come home to find a padlock on the door. That was how the Renewal worked. Maybe they had figured out how to roust old Wasserman after all. But Joe doubted it. If the old man was not scared off by Sonnenshein’s gorillas, he was not going to scare easy. Joe slipped notes into the mail slot asking Wasserman to call him at the station. Every time he delivered one of these notes, Joe heard the little mail door clack and knew the old man would never call. There was nothing a cop could do for him. It was too late for that.

  During a mid-morning visit to Wasserman’s, Joe recognized a punk on the sidewalk nearby, the same kid Joe had introduced himself to a few weeks before by sticking his gun in the kid’s face. Joe stayed in his car a moment, watching the kid slouch past. His movements were listless, tired. When Joe jumped out, the kid made no attempt to run.

  “You remember me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got something for me?”

  “No.”

  Joe shoved him across the sidewalk. “What are you, fuckin’ stupid? Are you stupid?” Joe saw
the disdain on the kid’s face. He’d heard the tough-cop bullshit before and mostly he was just bored with it. Joe was bored with it, too, but it was the only flavor he had. “You said you’d find out who broke up the old man’s shop. You gave me your word.”

  “I said I’d try.”

  “So?”

  “I tried. Nobody knows anything.”

  “Well, somebody must know.”

  “No.”

  “Keep trying, kid—”

  “No.”

  “Whattaya shaking your head? Keep asking around.”

  “No.”

  “What is that, ‘no, no, no’? Why not?”

  “Cuz it’s stupid, alright? I already asked everyone who’s left around here. Don’t you get it? It’s got nothing to do with us. There’s none of us left here. Whoever did it, they came from somewhere else. Why would any West Ender want to help the Renewal? What do we get out of it? What do you give a shit, anyways? You think they’re gonna hold this whole thing up because some old fart won’t leave his place? Look around you, man.”

  24

  February 13, 1964.

  Early Thursday morning they met at the Strangler Bureau to discuss DeSalvo. The Homicide commander along with Brendan Conroy and Tom Hart from Boston Homicide. A few detectives from surrounding towns that had had Strangler murders. From the Bureau, George Wamsley and Michael Daley.

  Wamsley was jubilant. It was evident from the first interviews at Bridgewater—from his manner and from the way he conducted the questioning—that he considered Albert DeSalvo the one true Strangler. In hour after hour of testimony, DeSalvo had provided many accurate details about the crime scenes. He knew at least something about all thirteen stranglings.

  Wamsley reviewed all this in some detail before concluding, “It seems to me we’ve found our man.”

  The cops exchanged looks.

  “Albert DeSalvo didn’t kill anybody,” Conroy announced. “He’s full of shit.”

  “Excuse me?” Wamsley inquired.

  “DeSalvo didn’t kill those women.”

  “Lieutenant, who would claim to be the Boston Strangler who was not?”

  “Someone who wants to be famous, who wants to be remembered. A con artist who thinks there’s money in it. A movie deal for ‘the true confessions of the mad strangler.’”

  “You think he’d risk the electric chair for that?”

  “Wamsley, he’s in Bridgewater. It’s a loony bin.”

  “He’s in Bridgewater because he’s sexually dangerous, not loony. They picked him up on a warrant out of Cambridge, for rape. Doesn’t make him a liar.”

  “Doesn’t help.” Conroy snorted. “He conned you, boyo. Everything he told you, he got out of the newspapers.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “The Feeney murder DeSalvo was going on about?” From a file folder, Conroy brought out an old copy of the Observer with a story under Amy Ryan’s co-byline, “Two Girl Reporters Review Strangle Murders.” “It’s all here. The buzzer, the fact the apartment was on the top floor, the symphony music, the pillow. Even the bit about not being able to turn off the hi-fi: the victim’s son had rigged up the record player to play through the radio somehow, so it didn’t turn off the usual way. All DeSalvo did was study the newspaper. And I can prove it, ’cause there are mistakes in this article that DeSalvo went and repeated. Joanne Feeney’s robe was not red. DeSalvo was confused by the description here. It says the robe was ‘rose-colored.’ DeSalvo pictured a red rose. But the robe was pink. I saw it. And the rape: he claims he penetrated her vaginally and he may have ejaculated in her. But Joanne Feeney wasn’t raped. Look at the autopsy report: no sperm in her vagina or her rectum, no injury to the external genitalia. DeSalvo was running a con. That’s all it was.”

  “Well, I found him convincing.”

  “Wamsley, even he couldn’t understand raping old ladies. You heard him. He’s into sex with young girls. You could tell he did not do the old ladies. DeSalvo might rob an old woman, but rape her, kill her? Doesn’t fit.”

  “Alright, okay, that’s Boston Homicide’s position.”

  “And Cambridge’s,” another detective interjected. “We’ve had Albert. He’s been around here for years. He’s not a killer. He’s no saint, but he’s not a killer.”

  Wamsley said, “We’re going to have a hell of a time convicting anyone else if DeSalvo’s already confessed. Anyway, I thought he was pretty convincing. Yes, he might have got some of it from the newspapers, but not all. There was just too much detail. No, I’m convinced. I’m convinced. So we’re going to focus on DeSalvo for now. We’ve got a guy who’s confessed to thirteen murders. We can’t ignore that.”

  “He’s the wrong guy,” Conroy insisted.

  “I don’t think so,” Wamsley said.

  “Ask him.” Conroy pointed at Michael. “What d’you think, college boy?”

  Michael waited.

  “What do you think, Michael?” Wamsley said.

  Michael shook his head. “I think Brendan might be right. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “Well,” Wamsley said, “someone has to decide. And that someone is me.” His eyes swept around the table to see how the statement went over. “We go with DeSalvo.”

  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?”<
br />
  “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?”