The Strangler (31 page)

Chick-chick-chick-chick.

There it was! Footsteps.

The pain subsided momentarily.

Chick-chick-
BANG
! As if a door had slammed open and the sound that was distant and external was now inside his head, chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick.

He saw feet running, close up, black patrolman’s shoes in a dead sprint, soles scratching the sandy pavement.

Joe Daley, Sr., so vivid! So thrillingly close! His cheeks jounced with each step. His nylon windbreaker luffed and crinkled as the wind filled it. He held one hand over his heart to keep his junk—reading glasses, notebook, smokes—from jumping out of his shirt pocket.

Michael could reach out and touch him. Inches away. Touch his father’s face.

But Joe Senior pulled away. Michael was behind him now. Saw his leg-kick as he ran. Eastie warehouses to the left, harbor to the right.

Farther behind Joe Senior—well behind—was Conroy. He chugged along slowly, then jogged, then stopped altogether. He grimaced. What had he done? What had he done to his friend?

Joe Senior seemed to sense his partner had dropped away. At the corner of one of the big redbrick buildings, he turned around and spread his hands:
The hell are you doing, Brendan?

“You go,” Conroy wheezed. “I’ll catch up.”

Joe Senior shook his head. Conroy was a character. How they had lasted this long together he would never know.

Senior disappeared around the corner of the building into the alley.

Enough!

Michael had seen enough. He turned off the movie. He knew how it ended. He knew how to make the pieces fit. There would be time to confirm it later. For now, sleep.

Margaret opened the door and the young man swept in with it, as leaves that have accumulated in a doorway will be pulled inside when the door is opened. He did not step all the way into the house. He stopped directly in front of her.

“Hello, Margaret.”

There was a delay, a fraction of a second, during which Margaret placed him—there were bruises on Kurt Lindstrom’s face, one of his hands was bandaged—then she slammed the door against him with a yelp of surprise and fear. He warded off the door, pressed it open again. Margaret continued to push for a moment but realized she would not be able to force him out, so she stepped back. She behaved as if she had invited him in, as if she was not distressed by his presence. What choice was there? She retreated to the living room.

“Oh, come on, Margaret. What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid.”

“No. No reason to be.”

“I’m not.”

“Course you’re not. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“My sons will be home soon.”

“Will they?” He checked his watch. “It’s late.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting.”

He ambled into the small room. His posture was lazy and pliant, like a teenager’s.

She got out a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table and lighted it in an actressy way. They were talking, at least. That seemed to matter, to suggest that she had a say in what might happen here. She could engage him, steer him.

“What happened to your hand?”

Lindstrom looked at the hand. “Your son.”

She presumed he meant Joe. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you. Why don’t you offer me a drink?”

“A drink?”

“Yes, a drink. What kind of hostess are you?”

“I don’t—what, what would you like to drink?”

“What do you have, Margaret?”

“There’s some beer, I think.”

“No, not beer. How about Scotch. Do you have Scotch?”

“I’ll go see.”

“Why don’t I come along? Maybe you’ll have one, too.”

She led him into the kitchen. She walked with her arms stiff at her sides.

The booze was in a cabinet at eye level. She raised her arm to open it, self-conscious of how the gesture tautened her clothes against her back and shoulder. Should she scream? Run for the door? She doubted she would make it to the door before him, even allowing for the advantage of surprise. A scream, she thought, would alarm him, set him off. As long as they were talking, maintaining the pretense of civility, there was hope.

She said, facing the cabinet still, “How do you want it?”

“Neat. Make one for yourself too, Margaret.”

“I don’t drink it.”

“Alright, then. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

She poured his drink and handed it to him. Should she have thrown it in his eyes? Would it have worked?

“What do you want, Margaret?”

“I’m not thirsty.”

He laughed. “No, not to drink. What do you want, right now?”

“I want you to leave.”

“But I just got here.”

“It’s late. I want to go to bed.”

“Will you have me back another time?”

“Yes.”

“Now, why don’t I believe you?”

She started to say something, a lie to reassure him. She felt her lips move but no sound came. He had no weapon. At least he did not seem to. She could not be sure. In most of the Strangler cases there had been no weapon. The Strangler had used whatever heavy object came to hand to bash his victims, then improvised a garrotte from whatever he had found in their apartments—nylons, bathrobe sashes, scarves, sheets. But in a few of the cases there had been knife wounds, mutilation…

“Margaret?”

“It’s true. Another time you can come. It’s late.”

He turned his bruised face forty-five degrees and looked at her from an angle, skeptically. “What has Michael told you about me?”

“Michael?”

“Yes, Michael Daley. Your son.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing about the Strangler?”

The air went out of her. The subject had now been introduced and would have to be addressed, finessed, if she was going to maneuver out of the situation. “No.”

Lindstrom offered no response, but something in his posture, a tensioning along his elastic spine, suggested he knew she was lying. They were on different terms now.

“He says,” Margaret elaborated, “there’s more than one strangler.”

“Yes, but one for the old ladies, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t, I don’t know. Most of them, yes, I suppose.”

“Not DeSalvo.”

“No.”

“Me.”

She did not answer.

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Daley. He’s told me as much.”

“I don’t know. I just…”

Lindstrom nodded. He already knew all the answers, knew she was lying, knew
why
she was lying. None of it mattered at this point. What would happen, would happen. “May I ask you something, Margaret? A personal question?”

Her eyes went to the floor. Sheet linoleum in a pebble pattern of browns and ochers, dull with age.

“Have you ever had it in the ass?”

Her rectum and buttocks contracted. The rest of her, shoulders, neck, backbone, all went slack. She was not really there—this simply could not be happening.

“Have you ever had it in the ass?”

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

“Have you?”

“Oh my God.”

“Well, either you have or you haven’t. It’s a yes-or-no question.”

Her head was bowed. She managed to rustle it back and forth: no.

“Why don’t you get those clothes off?”

“No…no…”

“It’s not so hard.”

“I can’t.”

“You want me to do it?” He put down his glass. “Come over there and do it for you?”

“No.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Want?”

“That’s right. We’re just a couple of old friends here having a chat. You can tell me anything.”

“Oh my God.”

“Just tell me, Margaret. Anything you desire.”

“I want you to please leave.”

“Leave? Just like that?”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“You mean, you know who the Strangler is, the Boston Strangler, but you’ll keep it to yourself? You, a policeman’s wife?”

“I don’t know anything. Some mixed-up kid in some kind of beef with one of my sons…”

He picked up the glass, sipped, and his mouth made a series of puckers as he considered. “Alright, then.”

“You’ll go?”

“On one condition: you tell your son Michael I came around to say goodbye.”

“Where are you going?”

“Parts unknown.”

“Okay. I’ll tell him.”

“One more thing and then I’ll go. I’d like a kiss.”

Her head craned forward slightly, as if she had not heard.

“That’s all. Just a kiss goodbye. Then I’ll go.”

She shook her head.

“Well, then it looks like I’m here for the duration. Shall we get back to our conversation?”

“Just a kiss?”

“A kiss and I’ll go.”

“I have your word?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“One kiss and you’ll go.”

“That’s right.”

She moved in front of him. Lindstrom was younger than Ricky, her youngest, by several years. Maybe it was just his appearance, smooth-skinned, ruddy. He might be half her age. Or less. He smelled of Scotch. She closed her eyes and tipped her head.

“No-no, you kiss me, Margaret. For a count of ten, let’s say. Get my money’s worth.”

She could knee him in the crotch, or run, or search for a weapon. But she would not. She knew she would not do any of those clever, resourceful things people did in movies. It was only a kiss.

She placed her closed lips against Lindstrom’s. One, two, three…

His hand went to the back of her head. His tongue emerged from his lips, thick and eely; it penetrated her mouth. A muffled squeal. He pressed her face against his. The tongue was of a grotesque length. Its surface had a fine nubby grain. The tip of it did something fancy against the roof of her mouth then circled around nearer the gum-line. The broad fleshy body of it flattened itself against her and wiped back and forth, luxuriating.

He let go of her, and she fell back. She thought she might vomit.

He sighed contentedly. “Wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She gave no response.

“Mmmm. Thank you, Margaret.”

“You said you’d go.”

“And so I will.”

They moved toward the kitchen door. He gestured for her to go first. She did not like the thought of him being behind her, but the door was just a few feet away, the whole incident nearly over—she could already see herself ten seconds ahead, relieved, unhurt—and she felt the lure of that so-near moment. It occurred to her, too, that he had gestured her forward exactly the same way in exactly the same spot when he had come to the house the first time.

She went ahead, arms folded. Her tongue mopped the roof of her mouth to scrub away the taste-memory of him. She was disgusted with her body. The filth of him, his spit, his taste, would be piped down her throat into her guts. She would absorb it. But she had to be strong for only a few more seconds, a few more steps.

There was a flash and a hollow sound.

Nothing. An empty moment.

Then she was aware of being on the floor. The hall floor. On her back. She could see up the stairs.

His hands were under her skirt. He was stripping off her nylon stockings. She heard a groggy voice say, “Don’t rip my stockin’s,” and it was a moment before she quite knew that the voice was her own. He tugged the stockings down over her calves, over her heels. Somehow her shoes had already come off.

She screamed.

He punched her face twice. “Don’t scream.”

He sat down heavily on her stomach. She felt the weight of his body oscillate on her stomach as he wound up the stockings together.

Her head was jostled roughly then dropped back down on the floor, hard. She wanted to reach for the back of her head, but he had pinned her arms with his legs.

She felt the nylon rope pull up against the back of her neck as he made the first simple over-under knot, then the rope zipped down tight, it cut into her neck, cinched it shut, and she could not breathe or stand the rocketing pain of it. She thrashed, panicked, and even as she did so she felt him completing the knot, securing the noose.

His weight lifted off her.

She continued to thrash until she could pry her fingers under the nylon and open a little space to gasp a stingy little breath, but already she felt herself being lifted by her hair and pulled up the stairs and she had to kick with her feet to keep her body moving so the top of her head did not get yanked right off.

“Come on, you.”

The stairs banged against her back and her bare heels and she was actually relieved when they reached the smooth upstairs hallway. She kept her legs crab-walking as best she could as she felt her skirt being lowered by the friction of her back and butt against the floor, she felt her shirt untuck and the floor scrape against the bare skin of her lower back.

“Where’s the bedroom!”

He released her hair and she dropped painfully on her shoulder. Her scalp ached. She wondered if the skin that tightly bagged the skull could be separated from it somehow, lifted away from that ball of bone, and whether the two could ever be rejoined as they were before.

She heard the bedroom door open.

Lindstrom made a sound—“Heh”—whose meaning she could not guess and before she could parse that syllable—there was an explosion and Lindstrom staggered back against the wall before her.