THE CALL comes in on a Monday. I know it’s a Monday because Monday is Sausage Day, the day of the week my partner, Gabriella Fernandez, walks me over to Ozzie’s. Ozzie is a street-meat vendor across from the Broadway Theater in Midtown Manhattan, located at the corner of Broadway and W53rd Street. Here, Gabby treats me to Ozzie’s Monday Special: grilled sausage on a split-bun fully loaded with sauerkraut, hot Keen's English mustard, diced fried onion, and what seems like a jug-jar of sliced jalapeño peppers. All this for a measly buck-and-a-half when Gabby purchases her own Special for six ninety-nine. Ice-cold Diet Pepsi for her, and Dr. Pepper for me come extra at two-fifty apiece, allowing for The Oz to make a small profit.
After four weeks sidelined by a gunshot wound and internal investigation by both the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Force Investigation Division, I’m cleared for return to active duty.
I’m manning the phones when the call comes into the switchboard at Midtown North Precinct Command. The Precinct is located on W53rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, and serves an area including The Diamond District, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Theater District, Restaurant Row, Radio City Music Hall, and Rockefeller Plaza.
What I refer to as Tourist Central.
The call is transferred through to me by One-Eye-Jack Gunderson. Four years earlier, Gunderson lost an orb to a knife-wielding meth-head while on foot-patrol in Central Park. Jack directs the call my way for a yuk, I suspect. He never imagines treating the caller seriously.
It’s been a slow day, so I’m willing enough to be amused. Before answering, I pop two Zantac, two painkillers, wash down the lot with dregs from a cup of stale coffee.
“Detective Dexter Fortune, how can I be of service?” I answer.
“How ironic,” is the first thing the guy on the line says to me.
“Excuse me?” I say, because I know what’s coming next.
“Dexter, your name.” He chuckles. “Like the guy on TV.”
“Yup, just like the guy on TV.” I get this often from cranks and colleagues alike. “How can I help you, sir?”
“How do you feel about serial killers, Dexter?”
“I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.”
I’m inclined to disconnect when the guy says, “I killed them, you know. I killed them all, which I suppose makes me an expert.”
Before I can ask a name or who he’s supposed to have killed, the guy chatters on.
“But first, let me rewind to the beginning, October twenty-eight, two thousand twelve. I recall the day, because I was looking forward to Halloween. The victim’s name was Dorothy Manischewitz, like the Jewish wine. Dorothy claimed to be forty-eight years old but looked closer to sixty. She was divorced, mother of three children, all in the custody of dear old dad. Dorothy was a slag who lost her parental rights years ago. A quart of Jack Daniels was incentive enough to invite me up and open the door to possibilities.
“The apartment was a shit-hole located in Jamaica, One Hundred Fifth Avenue—write this down; you’ll want to confirm. Dorothy had a cat—women like her always do—a tabby with a miserable disposition. I would have stomped the fur-ball but didn’t want to give Dorothy the wrong impression.
“There are no framed photos of rug-rats or family on the wall, so I think Dorothy will not be missed. Do you know it was eight days before she was discovered? And only then because of the stink? Eight days! I know this from reading the New York Post. This makes me feel bad for her. But not bad enough to regret killing her,” he adds like an afterthought.
I say, “How’d she die?”
“Nylon stocking around the throat, just like The Boston Strangler.”
The mention of The Boston Strangler makes my neck prickle. The name was given to Albert DeSalvo, who killed thirteen women between the ages of nineteen and eighty-five in the Boston area in the early nineteen sixties. Police believe DeSalvo gained access to his victims’ apartments by posing as a delivery man or building maintenance man because there was never any sign of forced entry. After sexually assaulting his victims, he strangled them with a nylon stocking.
“After downing a half bottle of JD, Dorothy was quite drunk,” he continues. “She passed out on the sofa. Easy-peasy after that: slip the nylons around her throat and slowly apply pressure. Her obituary said she died peacefully in her sleep. In a way, I suppose you could say she did.”
“Did you assault these women sexually? Like DeSalvo?”
As if offended, he snorts. “DeSalvo was a pervert. Some of his victims were old enough to be his grandma.”
“You expect me to believe there was no sex?”
“I’m no Ted Bundy!”
He’s becoming agitated. Fearing he’ll disconnect, I back off.
“Listen, fella, this is quite a story,” I say, though by now I’ve heard enough to be waving my hand like a madman to gain the attention of a colleague in the Precinct. “You mind if I take five minutes to check it out? I can’t be wasting time on every nut-job who calls in with a story to tell.”
Though calls into the station are recorded, I want a second set of ears so I can concentrate on the conversation. The guy is a chatterbox. Maybe I keep him talking long enough to set up a trace or triangulate a location; I’m sure he’s calling on a mobile phone.
As if reading my thoughts, the guy says, “I know what you’re thinking, Dex. But I’m calling on a burner. I picked it up at a Puerto Rican bodega in Queens because there are so many of them nowadays all selling burner phones; helluva’ way to make a living, you ask me.
“But even if you do triangulate, I’ll have flushed this bad boy down a toilet at the nearest McDonald’s. By the time you arrive, I’ll be long gone. It’ll be good for shit if you do find it.” At this, he laughs a whiney high-pitched gurgle. “Get it? Good for shit? And if you think McDonald’s is a clue, think again. I really, really hate McDonald’s. Wouldn’t be caught dead with that crap in my mouth.”
Finally, Gabby returns from a mid-afternoon run to fetch coffee. (Not because she’s female, but because it’s her turn to buy.) She sets down a tray of a dozen paper cups. Noting my excitement, she hustles quick to sit across from me at our shared work-space, her beautiful face screwed up into a query. On a notepad, I tell her to set up a trace. Once done, Gabby grabs an extension and a ballpoint pen, listens-in while taking notes.
“The second woman,” the guy goes on to say, “was August twenty-seven, two years ago. Nothing special about the day except a trip to the dentist. I’d been fighting a tooth infection. Dentist says I need a root canal. Her name was Maria Mancinelli. Not the dentist, the victim. Good-looking woman of fifty-two, though she hardly looked it. Maria was fun, good-natured, always smiling. Until she started drinking. Let’s just say she and tequila were not on the best of terms.”
He laughs the same whiny, high-pitch gurgle. At this point, I suspect he’s screwing with me.
“She came at me like a wildcat, claws fully extended. You don’t know how terrified I was. I don’t mind admitting it, but afterward, I was pretty shaken. Not because I killed her, but because, for a minute, I thought she was going to kill me.”
For a moment, he stops talking. I think this is my cue to respond. But the chatterbox says, “Needless to say, Maria did not die peacefully in her sleep, Dex. She put up a struggle. She took her pound of flesh; I still have the scars to prove it.”
“Sounds like a great story, mister…?” I say, expectant.
“I can tell you don’t believe me. You should. You will.”
“Pitch it to a publisher, pal.” I give him time to think this over. “Or come into the Precinct. You and I can talk, make sure I get the details straight.”
Tone menacing, he replies, “You think this is a joke?”
“Never.”
“You think this is a confession?”
“Isn’t it why you called?”
“No, Dex. I called to say I’m just getting started.”
Before disconnecting, he gives me an address.