Loverboy

by R. G. Belsky

“But you did that with the Blaumstein woman. Why kill again?”

  “I had to make sure the cops thought . . .”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “People say it’s very difficult to kill for the first time,” I told him. “But it gets easier after that. I think you found that out.”

  Fowler didn’t say anything.

  “You enjoyed murdering people, didn’t you? It gave you a feeling of power. I bet you really got off on it, Reverend.”

  Then I started to laugh.

  “But you did it all for nothing,” I said. “I’ve got a breaking news flash for you. Loverboy died twelve years ago.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “But the police never found him. He disappeared. All the newspapers said that. The police . . .”

  “We lied,” I said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I picked up the copy of the Blade on my desk and pointed to the paragraph in my article which cited police sources as confirming Loverboy was dead.

  “What—what happened to him?” Fowler asked.

  “He was murdered.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “I did.”

  He started to laugh. But he stopped as soon as he saw the expression on my face.

  I guess there was something there that made him realize I wasn’t kidding. For the first time in a long while, I was telling the truth. Loverboy was dead.

  And, at that moment, the Reverend Robert Fowler suddenly realized that everything he’d been doing to avenge the death of his girlfriend eighteen years ago had been for nothing.

  Suddenly I heard the click of a gun bolt being pulled back.

  But not Fowler’s.

  “Drop the gun right now, or I’ll shoot!” a voice said from behind me.

  I turned around.

  It was Mitch Caruso.

  Chapter 53

  It all happened in a matter of a few split seconds.

  Caruso standing there with the gun. More police behind him. And then, before any of them could do anything to stop him, Robert Fowler grabbing me from behind, putting his arm around my neck and holding the gun to my head.

  “No, you don’t move!” he shouted at them.

  No one did.

  “Everyone stay back—or I’ll kill her.”

  “Don’t do it,” Caruso said.

  “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “Let’s talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Maybe we can work something out.”

  Fowler laughed. “I don’t think so. I murdered four people. I know what I did. Now I just want to try to tell people why I did it.”

  I wasn’t sure if Fowler meant to kill me or not. But I knew that getting the story out seemed very important to him. And I was the person who could do that. I decided it was my ace in the hole.

  “Mitch, I don’t think he wants to shoot me,” I said.

  I twisted my head around to look back at Fowler.

  “Isn’t that true, Robert?”

  He nodded. “She’s right,” he yelled to the cops.

  “So what do you want?” Caruso asked.

  “I want Shannon to write a story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “My story.”

  I’ve hung around a lot with cops who’ve been in hostage situations like this. They say there’s always a critical moment at the beginning where a decision has to be made whether to go in with guns blazing or back off and play it cool. The upside to the blazing-guns scenario is it’s over quickly. The downside is the person in the middle—the hostage—sometimes gets caught in the crossfire.

  I didn’t want that to happen to me.

  “Let me do it, Mitch,” I said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “He’s already given me the interview. I’ll sit down at one of the computers and write it up.”

  “We’re all supposed to just stand here and wait while you do this?”

  “No,” Fowler said. “We do it alone. Everybody else leaves the room. You wait outside. This only involves me and Shannon.”

  “And then what?” Caruso wanted to know.

  “You print it in the Blade. When it comes off the press, you bring me a copy. I read it. If it says what I want, I’ll let her go.”

  Caruso shook his head. “I don’t like that deal.”

  “It’s the only deal I’m offering.”

  “What if we say no?”

  “Then I shoot her.”

  “Maybe we can talk about some other options.”

  “I’m all out of options.”

  In the end, the cops agreed to it. They really had no other choice. They backed out of the newsroom and into the hall outside. Now Fowler and I were alone. The cops couldn’t get at him. But he couldn’t get past them to escape either. It was a standoff, I guess.

  I sat down at a computer and wrote the story. The story of my life. Literally. Fowler watched me the whole time with the gun pointed at me. But I didn’t think he was going to use it, not then anyway. No point in killing me right now. He wanted the story. After it was done, well . . . I wasn’t sure about that.

  The funny thing is, I wrote a terrific story. Adrenaline pumping through you does that in the newspaper business. Of course, that adrenaline usually comes from a deadline or an anxious editor looking over your shoulder. But a gun is an even more powerful incentive. My fingers flew over the keyboard, and I was finished in less than thirty minutes.

  Then I pressed a button on the computer and sent the story to a file to be printed. Someone outside would retrieve it from there, then get it ready to put in the paper. They were going to have to do a complete replate. That meant stopping the presses to put a new plate on them with my story for page 1.

  I smiled at the thought of it.

  One way or another, I was going to go down as a legend in Blade history.

  Meanwhile, Fowler and I waited.

  “Is that really true what you said before about Loverboy being dead?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name was Joey Russo. He was a real loser. A misfit of society.”

  “And the police know all about this?”

  “The commissioner does.”

  “Why didn’t they ever say anything?”

  “There were . . . uh, extenuating circumstances.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  And so I did.

  I’d told the story a lot in the past few days. To Kate Robbins. Mitch Caruso. Commissioner Ferraro. Now to the Reverend Robert Fowler. I was getting pretty good at it.

  “So everything I did was for nothing,” Fowler said when I was finished. “I wanted the police to do something about Loverboy. But they already had. A long time ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wish I’d known this before.”

  “Life works in strange ways.”

  He smiled sadly.

  “I guess I should be grateful to you, Miss Shannon. You did it. You and your policeman friend. You did what I wanted to do.”

  “I’m still not sure we did the right thing.”

  “Of course you did. This Joey Russo was a sick, vicious killer. A man who brought misery to so many people. A monster. An animal. He murdered people. You murdered him. An eye for an eye. What could be fairer?”

  There was a knock at the door. It was Mitch Caruso. The first papers were off the press. He brought a copy of it in and laid it down in front of us. He looked at me as he did so. I nodded to him that everything was all right. Then he took one more look at Fowler, who was still holding the gun on me, and walked back outside.

  Fowler read the story on page 1. Then he turned to the jump on page 2. When he was finished, he started at the beginning and read it all over again. Finally he put the paper down.

  “That’s very good, Miss Shannon.”

&n
bsp; “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Thank you,” he told me. “Thank you for everything.”

  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.

  “Does that mean you won’t kill me?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He looked down at the gun in his hand.

  “I’ve hurt too many people,” Robert Fowler said softly.

  Then he stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in across the desk from me. He walked toward a door in the back of the city room. It led to a photo studio and storage area. Neither of them had an exit.

  “You can’t go that way,” I told him. “There’s no way out.”

  He smiled at me. A sad smile.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said.

  I guess it was always going to have to end this way for him ever since that terrible night when the shootings started back in 1978.

  He had everything then. The woman he loved. His baby girl. His life. And Loverboy took it all away.

  Oh, the doctors fixed him up physically afterward. But mentally he was never the same.

  You know what I think? I think Robert Fowler thought he should have died eighteen years ago in that car with Linda Malandro.

  That’s what he couldn’t live with.

  So when he did what he did in the end . . . well, I think he was just sort of putting things in order.

  I heard a loud gunshot.

  I jumped up, ran through the door he’d gone through and found Fowler lying there. There was blood all over his face. He was dead. The .44 was still in his hand.

  A few seconds later, the police burst in with their guns drawn.

  And it was over.

  Chapter 54

  I was sitting in Victoria Crawford’s office again.

  The awards and pictures of her were still on the wall. So were the famous front pages from Blade history. But this time there was a new addition. It said, “LOVERBOY’S LAST INTERVIEW—Copycat Killer Confesses, Then Shoots Self.” My byline was underneath the headline.

  “You did a great job, Lucy,” she told me.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re a star again.”

  “Yeah, I got a call from an agent this morning who wants me to write a book about the case. He says he thinks it can be a best-seller. Maybe even a movie too.”

  “A movie?”

  “Yeah, I was thinking about getting Michael Anson to direct it.”

  She smiled.

  “So what do you really want to do now, Lucy?”

  “I want to be a reporter.”

  She nodded. It was the answer she wanted to hear.

  “Being a reporter is all I ever wanted to be in life. I used to be a really good one. Lately, well . . . I know I haven’t always done as good a job for the paper as I’m capable of. But this story made me remember all over again how exciting it is to work for a newspaper. I feel like I did the first time I walked into the city room. I miss that feeling.”

  I had some other stuff I needed to say too.

  “I realize you and I have had our differences in the past. Maybe a lot of that was my fault. Actually, I know it was. I was jealous of your fame, power and money.

  “A long time ago, we used to be friends. I’d like to try that again. I don’t mean like we have to go to the movies or shop at Bloomingdale’s or throw parties together. Actually, we don’t even have to really be friends. I just don’t want to be enemies with you anymore.

  “You saved my job. When your husband wanted to fire me, you stood up for me. I couldn’t have done this story without you. I expect support like that from people who are my friends—like Janet and Walter. But when it comes from totally unexpected places—like you—well, it makes it even more special. Thank you, Vicki.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t do it just for you, Lucy.”

  “I know.”

  “I did it because I wanted the story. I thought you were my best chance to get it. It was a business decision, not a personal one.”

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “And,” she said slowly, “I suppose I also thought that maybe it was about time you deserved a break.”

  Victoria Crawford and I looked at each other across the desk.

  “I also did it,” she said, “because I wanted to stick it up my husband’s ass and show him he can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

  We were talking about Ronald Mackell now.

  “How’s that going?” I asked her.

  “Ron’s moved in with his girlfriend. She’s young, blond and has a body like Pamela Anderson, with an IQ to match.”

  “So you’re getting a divorce?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m going to make the bastard pay through the nose. Little Miss Bimbo is going to be the most expensive fuck he ever had.”

  “What about the Blade?”

  “He says he wants it.”

  “What do you say?”

  “Over my dead body.”

  I smiled.

  She glanced up at the front pages on the wall.

  “Loverboy has pushed the sales of this paper to a new high. I’m the editor. I get credit for that. Any settlement is going to have to take that into consideration.” She laughed. “Loverboy has been very good for both of us, hasn’t he, Lucy?”

  I suddenly remembered that at one point I’d even speculated that Vicki might be behind the murders—so she could use it to boost Blade circulation.

  I’d thought it was crazy at the time.

  Now it didn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

  Nothing seemed far-fetched anymore.

  But, of course, it didn’t matter now. Loverboy was dead.

  “How about you?” Vicki asked. “What’s going on in your love life?”

  “I’m seeing somebody,” I said.

  “That homicide cop?”

  “Yeah. Mitch Caruso.”

  “Have you slept with him yet?”

  “No.”

  “When?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Chapter 55

  Mitch Caruso was coming over to my house again.

  And this time I was ready.

  I was making him dinner. A real gourmet dinner. Chicken Kiev. I bought some boneless chicken breasts, cut and pounded them into rolls, then stuffed them with a mixture of butter, chives and tarragon. Then I added a touch of flour, beaten eggs and dry bread crumbs on the outside before I started cooking. For dessert, I made a crème brûlée—a rich French custard with lots of whipping cream and sugar. It took quite a while, but I didn’t care. Mitch was going to see a whole new me tonight. She solves murders, and she cooks too. Lucy Shannon, the total package.

  Afterward, I hoped this was the night Mitch and I would finally consummate our relationship.

  I wanted Mitch to kiss me, to hold me and to whisper sweet words into my ear all night. It had been a long time since I’d felt like that about someone. But I’d opened myself up to him in a way I’d never done before with any other man. I’d broken free of all the fears and anxieties that had always stopped me from doing that in the past. Now it was time for me to finally be happy.

  That was my plan, anyway.

  But sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry.

  Mitch showed up at my door a little after seven.

  “Smell that home cooking?” I asked him.

  “Very good.”

  “Just like Mom used to make.”

  “My mom wasn’t actually that great a cook.”

  “So if it really sucks, we’ll order takeout,” I said.

  He handed me a container of French roast coffee.

  “I picked this up at a coffeehouse downstairs on Third Avenue,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what to bring. I mean, I figured a bottle of wine wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Wine wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “But you . . .”

  “I’m a b
ig girl, Mitch. If you want, you can drink when you’re with me.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t like to drink alone. It’s not much fun, is it?”

  “Really? I used to love it.”

  I took the coffee into the kitchen and made some. When it was ready, I brought it out on a big tray with some cheese-and-cracker snacks.

  Caruso was looking through some of the books on my bookshelf.

  “You don’t have a search warrant with you this time, do you?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry. I was just curious about what you like to read. They say it tells a lot about a person.”

  My books were almost all true-life crime stuff and murder mysteries. I wondered what that said about me.

  “No problem. You can search my bedroom again, too, after dinner if you want.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “That’s a joke.” I smiled.

  We sat down on the couch. As we sipped on the coffee and ate some of the cheese and crackers, I told him about the great meal we were going to have. I also told him about my conversation with Victoria Crawford. And I even told him about the TV and book offers I was getting.

  At some point, I realized I was doing most of the talking.

  “Is there something wrong, Mitch?” I asked.

  “I’m just a little preoccupied.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “You, actually.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. You and my uncle.”

  He put the coffee down on an end table next to the couch. The expression on his face was very serious.

  “I talked to him today about you.”

  “The commissioner?”

  “Yes. He told me about his part in Joey Russo. How he knew about it all along and did nothing. I never heard that until today.”

  I was surprised.

  “Your uncle and I, we were supposed to have a deal,” I said slowly. “I wasn’t going to tell anything about him, and he was going to do the same for me.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “So why did he decide to tell you about it?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “But . . .”

  “I already knew about you,” Caruso said. “You told me. Remember?”

  “Okay.”

  “And I figured out the rest myself.”