Strangled

by Brian McGrory

  I was lighting it up here, and Vinny wasn’t giving me a second thought, let alone a first one. At least the cop was. He looked intently at my driver’s license, hunched down toward the window, and said, “You’re the guy who’s been getting the letters from the killer?” He said this softly, casually, his voice a little hoarse. When you’re a cop, even a street cop, maybe especially a street cop, you’ve seen a lot of the world, some of the good, but more of the bad. You know how easily people slip into the abyss, breaking through the flimsy little barriers that separate normalcy from desperation. And you begin, in some odd way, to understand, and understanding more often than not leads to empathy.

  I nodded and said simply, “I am.” I didn’t know the reaction I was about to get. Maybe it wouldn’t be a reaction at all but a ticket, which I suppose was a reaction as well.

  He handed me my license and registration and said, “Keep at it, young man. Tell the truth. Because in this matter, too many people aren’t.” And just like that, he walked back to his cruiser, leaving me to go on my way.

  Even Vinny looked at me with the phone still pasted to his fat ear and said, “Wow.”

  The neighborhood of Charlestown is, among other things, home of the Bunker Hill Monument, the occasionally contentious host of the nouveau Olives restaurant, and creator of the infamous code of silence that let so many murders go unsolved in the 1980s. But it is arguably best known for producing more bank robbers per capita than any other neighborhood in the country. It’s as if “Safe-cracking” and “Demand Notes” are curriculum requirements at Charlestown High.

  I bring this up only to point out that the halfway house that Vinny and I had just pulled up to was something of a rite of passage for what seemed like half of Charlestown’s native male population. These men are known as townies, though they don’t live in “the Town.” No, “the Town” is South Boston, also known as Southie. But natives there are called, well, residents, I guess. Yet another little point of confusion about my little hamlet of Boston.

  But more to the point, I pulled the car to the curb across the street from the state-operated halfway house where Paul Vasco was supposed to be in temporary residence. It was a big, gray, nondescript wood-shingled house, four stories high, butting right up against the sidewalk, sitting on the side of Charlestown that had not yet been transformed by wealthy young professionals who, depending on your point of view, either cleaned up and added value to city neighborhoods, or sucked the spirit and history right out of them.

  On this particular house, the paint was chipping. Old coffee cups, candy wrappers, beer cans, and corroded newspapers had gathered in the wells around the basement windows. Hinges that were supposed to hold shutters held nothing at all but rust. The mismatched front door looked like it was made of untreated plywood. I suspect it had been kicked in a few times.

  “Remind me never to cheat on my expense account ever again,” Vinny said, gazing upward at the structure from the passenger seat of the car.

  He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a rumpled sheet of paper, and unfolded it.

  “Paul Vasco,” he said, his voice now taking on an official tone. “Age: sixty-two. Occupation: former handyman. More recently, convict. Most recently, ex-convict. Residence: 652 Bulham Avenue, also known as the Bunker Hill prerelease facility. Criminal record includes convictions on rape and first-degree murder. Notable characteristics: known to have an IQ that exceeds the level of genius.”

  I said, “Well, the two of us will have something in common.”

  “You’re a handyman, too?”

  As he said this, Vinny shoved the paper back into his coat pocket. He added, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, he may be killing all over again. It’s on Jack and Vinny, Vinny and Jack, to stop him.”

  Obviously, some of this stuff I had heard already. The handyman part I hadn’t. So he’s adept with his hands as well as his mind. I asked, “Our strategy?”

  “First we have to get to him. My sources at the Department of Correction tell me it’s pretty easy access — hit or miss whether there’ll be an unarmed security guard around the house. They suggested that he was assigned to a room on the second floor, facing the rear, number twenty-seven, but couldn’t guarantee me that he hadn’t switched with someone, which they say is reasonably common.”

  “Carlton Fisk,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Twenty-seven. That was Carlton Fisk’s number. He hit the most famous home run in Red Sox history” — to win the sixth game of the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds — “which maybe is a sign that we’re about to hit a home run.”

  It should have been obvious to him. You’re in Boston, these numbers mean everything — 33 is Larry Bird, 86 is the year the Red Sox lost the World Series to the New York Mets, 4 is Bobby Orr, 9 is Ted Williams, 12 Tom Brady, 16 the number of Boston Celtic championships — a figure, by the way, that seems to be stuck in time. I could go on, but I won’t.

  Vinny looked at me funny. “Right,” he said. Then, “He has supposedly been assigned to a job with the state highway department, picking up trash on median strips and the like, but it doesn’t start until tomorrow. He’s wearing an electronic bracelet that requires him to be home when he’s not either at work or commuting to and from work. My guy over at DoC said he was home this morning.”

  I can’t say it enough, you’ve got to love Vinny Mongillo. If I ever become a good reporter, I want to be just like him.

  I said, “Well, let’s go see if we can make hay of a diabolical murderer.”

  “It’s about time.”

  Interested parties, by the way, might notice that we had no interview strategy, Vinny and I — or maybe that’s Vinny and me. There was no discussion of the good cop and the bad cop. We didn’t review possible questions and the most probing follow-ups. We didn’t set a sequence. We didn’t plot out our tone. No, Vinny and I are from what would best be described as the wing-it school of American journalism, raised with the belief that reporters have to adapt to the situation, and not try to dictate it in any sort of preordained or formulaic way. Nothing drives me crazier than watching a blow-dried television interviewer sit and read a bunch of questions off a pad of paper that one of his or her producers had already sketched out. No conversation, no flow, just one preordained question following the next.

  The aforementioned front door was unlocked, which was our first bit of good fortune on this mission, though maybe it wouldn’t prove to be so fortunate. It opened into a dark, bland hallway characterized by a threadbare carpet and peeling floral wallpaper illuminated by a single bare low-wattage lightbulb. The Department of Correction might seriously think about hiring a new interior designer for their interim housing. I’m a criminal spending more than an hour in a shithole like this and I’m doing everything in my power to get myself back into prison, including committing new crimes. At least the jailhouse color scheme — gray — is pretty uniform.

  We were both silent and tiptoeing, though I’m not entirely sure why, and Vinny tiptoeing is like anyone else walking — with a sack of cement on their shoulders. Vinny motioned upward and we both began ascending the steep, creaky wooden staircase, which sounded very much like it might collapse before we got to where we were hoping to go.

  The second-floor landing was neither better nor brighter. Think of a men’s room in a highway rest area, only this place smelled worse — a roundish, biting, aggressive odor that seemed to reach right into your nostrils and hit the back of your eyes. If hopelessness had a smell, this was it.

  The hallway was longer than I thought it would be. If there had ever been carpet laid down, it wasn’t there now. Instead, the floors appeared to be made of scratched and grooved particle-board, stained in various shapes and sizes and colors. The dingy walls hadn’t been painted since the Republicans and Democrats in Washington all got along. I could hear the tinny sound of cheap televisions and radios, and was picking up the fumes of cigarettes. All in all, not a pleasant place.

 
; “This feels like my old college frat house,” Vinny whispered to me.

  “I had no idea you went to college,” I whispered back.

  He ignored that and motioned for me to follow him toward the rear of the house. We passed several dark, old-fashioned doors, some with numbers on them, others not. The floors creaked, the air reeked, and it kept getting darker the farther back we walked.

  Mongillo stopped in front of the last door on the right. It had the metal number 7 on it, and you could see the outlines of where the 2 used to be but wasn’t anymore.

  I put my fist next to the door, waited for Mongillo to nod, and I knocked, twice softly, then three times firmly. We both stood and listened intently in the dark.

  Nothing.

  Well, at least nothing from behind this particular door. Down the hall, we heard a bolt get pushed into a lock. We heard a television set get turned down. We heard someone urgently dragging an unknown object across an unseen floor. And then we heard nothing at all.

  I looked at Mongillo. He nodded back at me. I knocked, even louder this time, four firm raps with the side of my right fist.

  Another lock turned down the hallway. Someone somewhere fell into a coughing, wheezing, hacking fit. A fly buzzed between our two heads.

  But again, nothing from this unseen room.

  I said, loud enough to be heard inside, “Mr. Vasco. Are you there? Mr. Vasco?”

  The sound of my voice bounced off the bare hallway walls and melted into the hazy darkness. If Mr. Paul Vasco was indeed inside, as he was supposed to be, then he was either an incredibly sound sleeper, or he had no designs on entertaining visitors right about now.

  I put my hand on the knob and began to turn it slowly. Mongillo squinted at me like I was some sort of maniacal nut, but did nothing to stop me. The knob, to my surprise, kept turning, turning, sliding all the way to the right. Just as it got to the end and I was about to slowly push it open, a latch opened across the hall and the door matter-of-factly swung open.

  Vinny and I whirled around simultaneously. I half expected to be shot right between the eyes, gunned down in my own cold blood in a dingy halfway house on the fringes of Charlestown while I was in hot pursuit of the most befuddling story of my otherwise stellar career.

  There was no gunfire, though, not even the flick of a knife. Instead, a voice from inside the darkened room called out, “You looking for me?”

  It was a voice that was at once gravelly yet pointed, weary yet strong — the voice of someone who was energized by his newfound freedom, yet at some deeper level not quite sure, after all these years in prison, how to handle it all.

  I asked, “Are you Paul Vasco?”

  Still the person didn’t appear. Vinny and I were staring at the darkened, open doorway the way Dorothy looked at the stage that supposedly held Oz.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  That was the voice, not Dorothy.

  I replied, “Sir, may we talk to you in private?”

  That inquiry was followed by a spate of silence, which was followed by the sounds of footsteps and the movement of a shadow; suddenly a silhouette appeared in the doorway.

  I strained to see him, and what I saw through the gloom was this: a wiry man, about five feet ten inches tall, one of those guys who you suspect is probably about ten times stronger than he first appears. His head was shaved, and his eyes were so dark that I think they might be black. He had about a week’s worth of salt-and-pepper growth on his face. He wore a pair of tattered old jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves haphazardly scissored off, exposing arms that seemed disproportionately large for his frame. He had beads of sweat on his forehead — odd, because it was by no means hot. He looked nowhere near his age, which made me wonder about how much we’re spending on prison health care.

  “You may tell me who the fuck you are.” He said this in a tone that was in no small way mocking.

  I replied, “I’m Jack Flynn, a reporter with the Boston Record.” As I said this, I stared into his eyes, probing for any sort of flash of recognition. I didn’t see any. “And this is my colleague, Vinny Mongillo. We were hoping to get a little bit of help from you if you had a few minutes.”

  He smiled at this, a diabolical little smile, exposing graying, yellowish, misshapen teeth. Perhaps we were saving money on dental care.

  “You want to talk about dead women, don’t you,” he said, his tone one of sudden amusement.

  “We do,” I answered.

  He asked, “Then or now?”

  Without missing a beat, I replied, “Both.”

  “You scum-sucking assholes can never leave it alone, can you? You can never admit you were wrong. Never leave a guy to live in peace.”

  That’s just great, by the way, being called a scum-sucking asshole by a convicted rapist and murderer. Funny part is, if he called us this on one of those cable-television shoutfests, say The O’Reilly Factor, the audience would probably cheer, and O’Reilly would tell him he’s spot-on in his fight for freedom and truth against the elite liberal news media.

  Since this was real life, not cable, I answered, “Not when we’re trying to get to the bottom of a serial-murder spree and we think that you might have a little information that would help get us there. We just need a few moments, Mr. Vasco, and you’ll never have to deal with us again.”

  “I don’t have to deal with you now.”

  He was right, actually, but at this point, I already knew he would. Maybe it was the way he held himself as he continued to lean casually in the doorway, his sizable arms folded against his chest. Maybe it was the look on his face, the one that betrayed how much control he felt over the situation, and the smug satisfaction he seemed to get from this impromptu give-and-take. I don’t imagine the discourse in the Cedar Junction state prison rec room was particularly highbrow or challenging.

  Vinny must have sensed the exact same thing I did, because he finally opened his mouth and said, “You’re absolutely right, Paul. But what else do you have going at the moment? Why don’t you let a couple of guys troll for a little bit of information, and see if it might be there?”

  He looked at Vinny as if he had just noticed him for the first time. He said, “Those murders are ancient history.”

  Interesting choice of words. Not “I didn’t kill anyone.” Not “You’re wasting your time, I don’t know anything.” Not “The Boston Strangler is long-ago dead and buried.” But rather, those murders we wanted to ask him if he committed are so old that they’re not worth anyone’s time.

  “Not anymore,” I replied. “Not if the killer is at it again, or even if someone’s just trying to copy him.” I paused here, a new thought clanking around in that broad expanse of my head: If this was a copycat, maybe the real Boston Strangler, Paul Vasco, would be irritated enough by it to guide us. So I added, “We need your help.”

  With this, we stared back and forth for a long moment, stared until his eyes finally fell to the floor before they rose up to Vinny. He shook his head as if he had been egregiously burdened with some enormous misfortune, and said, “Then come in.”

  He turned and walked into the room. Vinny and I followed, single file, Vinny first. I shut the door behind us.

  We hadn’t walked five feet when we both stopped short in a clichéd mix of shock and horror as we stared around the dimly lit room at what was hanging on virtually every free inch of his walls.

  “Let me explain,” Vasco said calmly, even amusingly.

  “That would be good,” I replied.

  The follow-up comment that I didn’t make was that it better be good enough.

  25

  The room had a bare mattress on a single bed covered by a rumpled blue blanket so old that the fabric was almost transparent, but for the hairs and pieces of food stuck in the little balled up pieces of wool. There was a straight-back wooden chair, the type of furniture you’d expect an old grammar school teacher would have used in centuries gone by.

  The whole room was maybe a hundred square feet,
no bigger than a walk-in closet to the privileged denizens of an upscale town like Weston or Wellesley. By the door, there was an old porcelain sink with those old-fashioned turn handles for hot and cold water that you don’t see much of anymore. Water dripped from the faucet.

  At the far end of the room, though the term far end was something of a misnomer in this room, was a single narrow window covered by a torn, drawn shade. Daylight poked through a few of the holes, casting an odd glow across the filthy wood floor.

  And then there were the walls — yes, the walls, a different story altogether. The walls were covered with pornographic pictures torn out of magazines. We’re not talking soft porn either, like a bare-breasted woman sprawled across a chaise lounge with a caption that identifies her as someone named Angelica who enjoys baking cookies in the nude and loves riding horses. No, we’re talking about the hardest of hard-core porn, the raunchiest possible raunch — women with animals, women on women, multiple women with men, multiple men with women with prosthetics, women being beaten, dead women, all of them displayed one picture after the next all over the room. There was even the requisite horse, but believe me when I say the woman wasn’t riding him, at least not in the traditional sense.

  I was looking at the pictures out of the corner of my eye, shell shocked. Mongillo saw no need for subtlety. He stared at them for many long moments, his eyes drifting from one to the other, from one wall to the next, until he finally turned to Paul Vasco, who was sitting on the edge of his bed, and said, “That’s quite an elaborate collection you have there.”

  Vasco didn’t even hint at a smile. Instead, in a dead-toned voice, he said, “Forty-two years and twenty-one days I was in prison. You have any idea what it’s like to spend even one fucking day in there? You have any idea what it’s like to lose all your liberty, all your dignity, all your pride? My first week in, I was raped in the communal shower while two prison guards watched and laughed. I was still bleeding a week later, but nobody gave a fuck. I ate crap. I was given thirty minutes to exercise a day. I read not what I wanted, but what they gave me. I had cockroaches running across my face as I tried to sleep. We were treated like animals, so we acted like animals.”