Read Online Strangled by Brian McGrory - Free Book Online

time had suddenly become crucial.
    “I have one, a Walter Hutchens on Dome Road,” she said.
    I told her I’d take it, and dialed it as quickly as my fingers would allow.
    Come about the fifth ring, the sleepy voice of a woman said, “Hello.” It was then I realized how early in the morning this was. Didn’t matter. I asked for Lauren. The woman hesitated and said, “She doesn’t live here.”
    “Any idea how I might get in contact with her?” I asked.
    “This is her mother. She moved into Boston last year. Can I help you with something?”
    My heart sank. The truth was not a viable option, not the whole truth, anyway. I said, “This is Jack Flynn, a reporter for the
Boston Record
. I’m trying to speak with Lauren about a story I’m writing.”
    A long silence, long to me anyway. I wondered if she was about to tell me that her daughter was dead, the victim of a murderer who hadn’t yet been caught. Instead she said, still sleepy, “She moved into town a year ago.”
    “Do you have her number?” I asked, trying to sound neither pushy nor panicked.
    “I can call her and pass along your information.”
    Everyone’s suspicious of the news media these days.
    I gave her my cell phone and work numbers and asked if she could call sooner rather than later. And with that, I hung up.
    I dialed information again, this time asking for a Lauren Hutchens in Boston. There was an L. Hutchens on Park Drive, and I called that number but got no answer. When it kicked over to a recorded greeting, the woman’s voice, strong and resonant, sounded like it would go with the picture that I held in my hand. I asked her to call me and gave her my numbers. I had something more than a feeling that she’d never have the chance.

7
    Peter Martin and Vinny Mongillo were already sitting in Martin’s corner office as I made my way through the darkened, empty newsroom, the Phantom Fiend’s envelope in my hand, a little bit of dread in my heart — and maybe a tinge of embarrassment and a bit of excitement over the story that was beginning to unfold.
    The two of them were sitting at a small, square conference table when I walked in, Mongillo taking the last bite of a Krispy Kreme doughnut that he had pulled from a half-empty box that sat between them. Truth be told, Mongillo had lost about seventy-five pounds in the prior year and was continuing to lose weight the way Frank Sinatra shed wives, until Krispy Kreme opened its first store in Boston proper. The board of directors of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc., must set aside ten minutes at their annual meetings just to pay homage to Vinny Mongillo.
    Martin pointed to the chair to his right, in an apparent invitation, though maybe it was a command. I don’t know. As I sat, he said to me, “I woke up with a jolt last night. I had this thought that you may not be the only reporter in town that the Phantom Fiend is corresponding with. And if you’re not, someone else might get this story into print before us.”
    He had a point, as he often does, even if it seemed needless to make it at 6:30 a.m. I was already becoming proprietary about the Phantom Fiend. Yes, he may have been a killer, but he was
my
killer, and I’d just as soon keep it that way.
    Mongillo coughed hard. I thought I saw a piece of chewed doughnut land on the table in front of me, but didn’t want to inspect it too closely for fear that I was right. I asked Martin, “What makes you think that?”
    “Wichita,” he replied. “The BTK serial killer back in the seventies and eighties. He sent a letter to the local paper that mistakenly got routed to the classified ad department. He was so frustrated that his name didn’t get into print that he started writing to TV reporters, radio reporters, the cops. Anyone with a fricking PO box. They lost control of the story. I don’t want that to happen here.”
    I nodded. Mongillo tried to speak for the first time since I arrived, but his voice was choked by the doughnut that he was