CHAPTER SIX

He was the same person.

Balint’s fear that the murder would transform him—that he might leave Cobb’s Crossing fundamentally altered—did not come to pass. Even before he’d ever contemplated homicide, he had always found the sudden guilt of killers somewhat inexplicable. In college, where he’d suffered through a required English seminar for premeds, Lady Macbeth’s remorse had utterly befuddled him. Now that he had proven his own mettle and joined the criminal ranks, the notion of second guessing his deed seemed more alien than ever. On the drive home from Westchester, he had braced himself to feel anxious and unsettled. In reality he experienced a sense of calm that he hadn’t enjoyed in months. His future course of action had been determined irrevocably; there was no turning back. When he paused at a rest stop on the interstate and flushed the latex gloves down the toilet, Balint felt only satisfaction. To his delight, despite heavy traffic from the college football games letting out at the arena, he was still able to return to the hospital in time to retrieve his certificate of completion.

Over the next several days, Balint’s initial calm gave way to restless energy. Although he’d pledged to himself to wait at least two weeks before attempting a second strike, he now fought against an urge to kill again quickly. It wasn’t that he took any pleasure in the slayings—far from it. If anything, the brutality of the offense had repulsed him. But now that he’d started down the path toward exterminating his rival, he longed to finish the job, to put the enterprise behind him. Another motivating factor was Delilah’s father: once Sugarman had been eliminated, Balint hoped to persuade the surgeon’s replacement—either Chester Pastarnack or a newcomer—to list Norman Navare for an organ. Of course, premature action came with its own drawbacks: if he’d committed any errors during the first killings, he hoped the press would report on his sloppiness, so he could adjust his methods before further attacks. That was the sensible plan. Ultimately he compromised with his own desires and opted to play it by ear.

At first, the media didn’t report the double homicide at all. Balint fidgeted in his study while listening to the radio all day Sunday, tuned to a New York City-based news station, awaiting a breaking crime alert. Nothing. He didn’t dare search the Internet for information—not even at the public library—for fear the authorities might ultimately track his digital fingerprints. Finally, during his commute to work that Monday morning, the story broke. Balint learned that his victims were Albert and Wilma Rockingham, both in their early eighties. The pair were retired musicology professors from Saint Anselm College. Their bodies had been discovered by their granddaughter, Ruth, who lived in the basement apartment below their home. Balint realized he was the only living human being who could appreciate this irony: the girl he’d spared hadn’t been so lucky after all.

What Balint heard next enraged him so greatly that he nearly drove the Mercedes into a tree. Local law enforcement suspected murder-suicide—especially as Albert Rockingham had been suffering from dementia. The radio reporter interviewed a longtime neighbor who described the couple as “inseparable” and “devoted,” and a police captain who promised to “explore all angles.” Nobody mentioned any green ribbon. Balint was dumbfounded: Hadn’t the investigators seen the marks on his victims’ necks? Or the abrasions on Wilma’s forehead? Her nose was practically crushed, for heaven’s sake! How could a frail octogenarian strangle herself with her own bare hands? He resisted a burning impulse to telephone the Keystone Cops in Cobb’s Crossing and to inform the chief that his officers were a pack of bungling idiots.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the matter disappeared from the news entirely. Balint felt himself growing sullen and despondent. He had promised to take the girls to view the Macy’s parade along Fifth Avenue, but at the last minute, he feigned severe back pain and sent Amanda and his daughters to New York on their own. Who cared anymore if his actions appeared suspicious? His problem now was that there was no longer any unsolved crime to be suspected of. Yet puttering around the lifeless house that morning, another idea struck Balint: What if the authorities weren’t knuckleheads? Could they already suspect a potential serial killer—maybe tipped off by the ribbon—and all that nonsense about “murder-suicide” was merely a ruse? An effort to bait the culprit or lull him into false confidence? The more he considered this scenario, the more plausible it seemed. Over the holiday dinner at his parents’ place that evening, listening to Phoebe describe each of the parade floats in painstaking detail, Balint’s mood buoyed on the belief that his plan might yet have succeeded. That the police could already be hunting clandestinely for the Green Ribbon Strangler. His head swam with excitement. Four glasses of red wine did nothing to dampen his relief.

Balint took a risk the next morning, visiting the Pontefract Library to skim the Westchester newspapers. While this wasn’t an unpardonable error—like searching for “double homicide” or “Rockingham” on his home computer—the possibility always existed that he might be seen. But he felt that he needed to know the state of the investigation. To his dismay, he learned nothing. Apparently, at least for the moment, the press no longer deemed the couple’s deaths newsworthy.

And then, on Sunday afternoon, a seemingly minor incident disconcerted him. He was installing a reflective address number on his mailbox—to conform with a new local ordinance that already had led to several warning letters from the town—when his wife’s strange friend, Bonnie Kluger, called out to him. She wore a pith helmet; a pair of binoculars hung around her wiry neck.

“I saw you yesterday,” she announced—without any introduction.

“Could be,” said Balint. “I’ve been around.”

“Not here,” said Bonnie. “At the library. In Pontefract.”

The smart response—the common sense response—would have been merely to acknowledge the possibility; visiting a suburban library was far from a capital crime. But, on impulse, Balint said, “Not yesterday. I haven’t been to Pontefract in ages.”

“It was you.” Kluger wagged her index finger at him. “And it was yesterday.”

Balint regretted his denial immediately. He shrugged. What did it matter, he reminded himself, if Bonnie Kluger thought him dishonest.

“It was you. I know what I know,” Bonnie repeated again—and then she trundled away as quickly as she’d appeared. Balint watched her retreat across the street, shouting instructions to her countless outdoor cats before she disappeared into her house.

Although he knew he didn’t have anything to fear from Bonnie Kluger—she was nutty, but harmless—the lesson to be drawn was clear: even reading about the slayings in the library was potentially dangerous, as it might lead to other incriminating behaviors like this pointless lie to his peculiar neighbor.

So he waited for developments. At first, each day that passed without additional news left him increasingly frustrated. By the end of the week, he was on the brink of giving up hope—of writing off the Rockingham killings and starting his murder spree from scratch. And then, a few days later, as he unwound in the physicians’ lounge after a long morning in the clinic, he caught sight of an article in the Metropolitan Section of the Times: “Cobb’s Crossing Slayings Reclassified.” A coroner’s verdict had ruled out murder-suicide and the local authorities now sought a perpetrator. Again, no mention of any green ribbon. The closest the media came to reporting on the ribbon was a cryptic statement that authorities were withholding “a peculiar detail” related to the crime. Good enough. After nearly two weeks of torment, Balint sensed that at last he had the upper hand.

THEY HAD just settled down to dinner that evening when the doorbell rang. Balint looked to his wife for an explanation—but she appeared equally puzzled. “I hope it’s not Sally again,” she said. “Did I tell you she lost that kid a second time? On Thanksgiving Day! The police found the girl sleeping inside the Rothschilds’ doghouse.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m telling you now.”

The bell rang twice more.

“I believe someone is at the door,” said Jessie—mimicking the English maid on one of her television programs. “I shall answer it.”

Jessie raced from the table into the foyer. Balint shrugged at Amanda and then chased after his daughter.

On the porch stood Gloria Picardo, who had once been Gloria Sugarman, and now looked as though she were one straw away from self-destruction. The surgeon’s ex-wife didn’t carry an umbrella; she made no effort to shield herself from a steady barrage of sleet. Flakes of frost coated her shoulders and peppered her stringy, unkempt hair. Bags of flesh swelled under her bloodshot eyes. “Jeremy! Thank God you’re home,” she cried, practically falling into the vestibule. “Please tell me Amanda’s here.”

“She’s in the kitchen. Did something happen?”

Balint feared for an instant that Sugarman’s ex-wife had killed him herself—which would have achieved his own goals, yet somehow leave him cheated. Gloria didn’t answer. She staggered past him into the kitchen and slumped into a chair. Balint’s chair. Seconds later, the woman was sobbing, her face cupped in her palms.

“Is she hurt?” Jessie asked him.

“I don’t think so,” answered Balint. “Your mother is a magnet for weeping women. The moment they sense a tear coming on, they’re drawn to our doorstep.”

Jessie frowned at him, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us.” He picked up his daughter’s plate. “Why don’t you and your sister take your suppers into the living room and watch TV? We’ll make it a special night.”

“Will you come with us?”

“In a few minutes, princess,” he agreed.

He’d dispatched the girls in the nick of time. They’d hardly been out of the room thirty seconds when Gloria started lacing the air with profanity.

“Let it all out,” coached Amanda. “You’re among friends.”

That was rich. One of these “friends” was sleeping with the woman’s ex-husband and the other was planning to kill him. Balint drew his plate away from their visitor and devoured his halibut while Gloria filled the kitchen with invective.

“Goddamn, goddamn bastard! Cocksucking bastard!”

“Please,” warned Balint. “The children will hear you.”

Gloria cut short her cursing and tried to compose herself.

“What happened?” asked Amanda. “Tell us from the beginning.”

Their guest dried her face with a napkin.

“He was cheating on me. For years,” said Gloria. “I broke into his e-mail account. The bastard’s goddamn password was heart.”

Balint’s adrenal glands surged into overdrive. In the next room, Jessie and Phoebe argued over which channel to watch.

“Do you know who he was having an affair with?” asked Amanda. “Did he mention a name?”

“Why does it matter?” interjected Balint—with unprovoked cruelty. “Are you friends with Warren’s mistress?”

Amanda flashed him a ferocious look.

“I was just curious. And who knows? It’s a small, overlapping world.”

Gloria glanced from him to Amanda and back. “That’s the awful part. There were so many of them. Patti and Sandra and M.W. and someone named C and someone named A . . .”

Amanda’s face turned white as gauze. “Well, that’s a surprise, isn’t it?”

“He’s still meeting A on Saturdays and C on Sundays.”

“What happened to B?” asked Balint.

Gloria either didn’t hear his question or didn’t absorb it. The woman removed her pocket mirror from her purse and examined her face. “Heavens, I look terrible,” she said. “I’m sorry I barged in on you like this. I didn’t know where else to turn . . .”

“You did the right thing,” replied Amanda.

Gloria thanked her through another burst of tears. “But what should I do now? What should I do?”

“You don’t need to do anything, dear,” soothed Amanda. “You’re done with him. He’s A’s and C’s and Lord-knows-who-else’s problem now.”

Sugarman’s ex-wife clutched her purse to her chest, shell-shocked.

“I think it’s time for someone new,” said Amanda. It amazed Balint how well his wife kept her emotions in check. “The best revenge is to lead a good life. Maybe Jeremy can fix you up with one of his colleagues . . .”

Like that was going to happen, thought Balint. Even if Gloria Picardo hadn’t looked like she’d hired the Ghost of Christmas Past for an image consultant, the pickings were slim among eligible bachelors at the hospital. Some of his older colleagues might not care about her appearance, but her anger—that was unsellable. Yet Amanda had a knack for assigning him tasks on behalf of her countless acquaintances—please recommend a podiatrist, kindly write a letter to an insurance company—not realizing that these favors mounted up to a hell of a lot of extra work.

“I swear I’d kill him if I could get away with it,” Gloria threatened. “I really would kill the bastard.”

But you couldn’t get away with it, mused Balint. They’d catch you in a day.

He cleared the fish bones off his plate and set the dish in the sink. Then he retreated into the living room and watched a double episode of Dancing Barnacles with his daughters. Another two hours elapsed before Amanda managed to ease their visitor out the door. That meant a delayed bedtime for Jessie and Phoebe.

Amanda stepped into the living room as soon as Gloria had departed. “May I have a word with you, Dr. Balint?”

He followed his wife to the cusp of the dining room. The moment they were out of earshot of the girls, she demanded, “What on earth is wrong with you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What happened to B? Are you friends with Warren’s mistress?” mimicked Amanda—echoing his earlier questions. “Anyone could see that woman was suffering. Did you really feel the need to make fun of her?”

“She didn’t even notice.”

“But I noticed.”

“And I wasn’t making fun of her,” insisted Balint. “Not really.”

“Like hell you weren’t.” His wife had her tiny hands balled into fists. “Gloria’s so right. You are all a bunch of bastards.”

HE’D LEARNED one clear lesson from those first slayings: his next murder would take place at night. The advantage of the daytime was that it afforded him more time, and more flexibility with his alibi; in the end, Balint decided this wasn’t worth the additional risk of being witnessed. If he’d been leading only a double life—dividing his days between his roles as family man and marauding strangler—he’d have had little difficulty finding enough opportunity for both roles. But he was actually leading a triple life—as family man, serial killer, and philanderer—and balancing this triad of obligations proved far more of a challenge. He grudgingly gave Sugarman credit for being able to manage multiple lovers, as even one mistress proved a scheduling nightmare for him. Of course, the surgeon hadn’t been married to Amanda—a woman who made a point of knowing everything about everyone. Balint assured himself that, had he been married to Gloria Sugarman/ Picardo—perish the thought—he could have slept with the entire New York Jets cheerleading squad without her noticing.

The best evening alibi that Balint could devise was through his work at Steinhoff’s inner-city clinic, which had gotten off the ground with surprising speed. The rabbi had arranged a fully equipped office suite for Monday and Wednesday evenings, renting from a solo practitioner who served the city’s Brazilian community. All of the signage was in Portuguese, but the equipment proved first-rate. Balint had persuaded the medicine department chairman, Dr. Sanditz, to assign three senior house officers to the clinic, which he’d convinced his boss to be a good public relations move, while Balint himself had strong-armed the younger members of his division into supervising. He’d even agreed to supervise in his own right two nights each month. But he was flexible, not stupid: it was more than likely, he recognized, that one of Amanda’s goals in having him administer the clinic was to keep him away from home in order to facilitate her trysts with Sugarman. His suspicions were confirmed when he returned after his first evening of supervision to find the girls away at yet another sleepover with the Arcaya sisters. If Amanda had agreed to a sleepover on a weekday night, she was obviously up to no good.

His initial plan had been to arrange coverage at the clinic for one evening and then to drive into suburbia in search of his next victim. The only risk was that Amanda might surprise him at the clinic—and find him absent. She’d been threatening to visit her pet project for weeks. His wife’s actual aim, Balint understood, was to generate her own alibi, so he wouldn’t suspect her of infidelity, but her efforts to conceal her double life promised to crash directly into his own. Rather than waiting for her to surprise him, he decided to preempt her: he phoned Etan Steinhoff and organized a tour.

Amanda was obviously displeased at the sudden change to her schedule, but when Balint told her that Steinhoff would be visiting the clinic the following Monday, she had little choice but to join them. Another official from the synagogue accompanied the group—a statuesque, sheep-faced woman who looked far more Scandinavian than Jewish—as did the squat, acerbic wife of Chairman Sanditz. After exploring the clinic on a Monday night, the cardiologist assured himself, his wife would have little reason to drop by again on a Wednesday.

The clinic was operational, but far from successful. It turned out that another free clinic already operated in the neighborhood—one affiliated with a local African American church. On some nights, Project Cain boasted as many physicians as patients. As a result, much of Balint’s VIP tour consisted of showing off unoccupied office space. Without patients, the clinic looked remarkably like any other physician’s suite.

“When do you open?” asked Mrs. Sanditz.

“We are open,” answered Balint.

He steered his entourage across the waiting area into an examination room. One of the house officers relaxed at a computer, playing solitaire. “This is examination room number one,” said Balint—as though flaunting the Crown Jewels of England. “This is our supply cabinet. This is our refrigerator. This is Dr. Desai, one of our senior residents.”

Dr. Desai smiled awkwardly and shook several hands.

“I’m confused,” said the sheep-faced woman. “Why aren’t there more patients?”

“Maybe we’ve cured them all,” said Balint. He continued the tour. “And this is the cabinet where we keep the spare gowns. And this is the unisex bathroom. Would any of you like to try out the unisex bathroom?”

Rabbi Steinhoff exchanged a few inaudible words with Amanda. Then he adopted his pulpit voice and said, “I think it’s crucial to remember that we’ve only been open for a month. The community is just beginning to hear about us.”

“One wonders,” quipped Mrs. Sanditz, “precisely what they’re hearing.”

“And this is the janitor’s closet,” said Balint. “And, lo and behold, this is Mr. Paderewsky, the janitor. Would any of you like to say hello to Mr. Paderewsky?”

Amanda didn’t utter a word to him all evening. He imagined she was thinking: I can’t believe I gave up my night of passion for this. But it hadn’t been his idea to offer healthcare that nobody actually wanted. His fear now was that Steinhoff might pull the plug on the whole enterprise before he’d had an opportunity to do any killing. Fortunately the rabbi wasn’t the plug-pulling type. Balint could already envision the fool doubling down on his clinic—maybe establishing a chain of unwanted healthcare centers—because men like Steinhoff possessed far more hope than life’s evidence ever merited.

IN AN ideal world, he’d have committed his next murder on Long Island. After studying his atlas, Balint concluded that Nassau County was the preferred location—but also, that the distance would be too far for him to travel on a weekday night. Instead he decided that he’d kill in northern New Jersey this time, then find a weekend night when he would have more time for the next murder. If his fifth victim were Sugarman, that would still leave a wide-enough spread to focus investigators on New York City.

He worked as rapidly as possible. His first task was to arrange coverage at the clinic, which proved more difficult than he’d anticipated. Wednesday evening, it turned out, was the surgery department’s Christmas party, and many of the junior medicine attendings planned to crash the shindig for the free booze. After nearly a dozen calls, Balint finally found a visiting pulmonologist from Taiwan whom he was able to cajole with promises of exposure to “unique patient populations.”

On Tuesday, he skipped grand rounds and drove out to the fishing cabin. Fortunately the snow on the stone path had melted—although the undergrowth alongside the trail lay buried under several inches. In preparation for the winter, he cut off six yards of ribbon and secured it inside his wallet. What choice did he have? Then he returned to Laurendale-Methodist during his receptionist’s lunch break. By the time she was back at her desk, he’d already registered the next patient on his own. Nobody, he was confident, had noted his four-hour absence.

Wednesday dawned clear and cold. Balint spent an hour on the telephone that morning with Delilah, assisting her with the complex dosing problems on her nursing school homework. Ever since he’d informed her that he’d managed to place her father on the transplant list—which wasn’t true, yet, but might well be soon—the girl had been frolicking at the top of cloud nine. When they met, at least one afternoon each week, she appeared prettier than ever. Fortunately she’d been assigned to an overnight shift for the next three months, at a hospital two counties away—a clinical requirement for graduation—so she rarely placed any additional demands upon his time. He enjoyed helping her with her homework. It made him feel as though she was also deriving a benefit from their relationship—as though he wasn’t simply using her for his own ends. After he’d taught her tricks for converting doses of short-acting benzodiazepines into long-acting benzodiazepines, he spent the remainder of the day auscultating chests and palpating abdomens. His last patient canceled. At four o’clock, he pulled the Mercedes onto Veterans Boulevard.

This time, he hadn’t chosen a particular town in advance. Instead he cruised up the parkway for an hour and then took the first exit that appeared vaguely suburban. The village he found himself in was Upper Chadwick, a middle-class bedroom community of widely spaced, split-level homes. As though looking ahead to Balint’s spree, the town planners had lined the hamlet’s streets with evergreen shrubs—boxwoods, and laurels, and privet. Most of the sidewalks, especially on the back streets, were largely shielded from the nearby homes. Balint didn’t have a particular plan for selecting his prey, so he circled down various lanes and culs-de-sac, hunting for a promising victim. For a while, he trailed a pair of teenage girls, hoping they might separate, but they ultimately ducked up the same front path. He passed a young man leaning over an open automobile hood, in a particularly quiet stretch of road opposite a vacant park, but the motorist looked strong enough to put up a fight. How much easier, reflected Balint, if he’d been shooting instead of strangling. But guns generated noise and were more difficult to conceal. And, to be candid, he had no idea how to purchase a firearm illegally.

The clock on the dashboard had passed six o’clock. He was feeling desperate, yet he knew not to let his emotions influence him. If he couldn’t find a suitable target, he’d have to defer until another evening. Slipshod work led to the gas chamber, at least metaphorically speaking, although there were no gas chambers left in New Jersey. Yet he had crossed state lines for the Rockingham murder, he knew, so he could indeed face the death penalty in federal court—all the more reason not to be apprehended.

He allotted himself half an hour more. A few minutes later, he passed a local middle school—and, on a whim, he looped into the parking lot. One glimpse was all he needed to confirm his target.

The kid looked to be thirteen or fourteen. Old enough. He was an overweight creature, not obese, but his limbs were stubby; if this weren’t sufficient punishment, genetics had cursed him with a soft chin and a sloping forehead. He sat on a swing set, trailing his feet in the sand below. An enormous backpack rested on the concrete nearby. Not another human being was in sight. The panoramic lights from the middle school roof, affixed at the top of every drainpipe, afforded Balint a complete view of the parking lot, the playground, and the baseball fields beyond. He could not have asked for a more promising victim.

He pulled the Mercedes to the side of the lot. The adolescent looked up for a moment, then returned to his moping. Balint had known boys like this kid before—in high school, fewer in college. They faced miserable futures: What woman wanted to wake up each morning next to a specimen like that? What employer asked a youth like that to sign a contract? The more Balint thought about the boy, the worse he felt for him—and the more convinced he became that, in strangling him, he’d actually be doing the hideous child a favor. Sure, his parents would miss him. Maybe his siblings too. But in the long run, they’d be spared the indignity of watching their homely, hopeless offspring struggle through an adulthood of wretched gloom. He’d spare beautiful women—like Phoebe and Jessie would someday become—from the creature’s pestering advances; he’d save public health dollars squandered on the loser’s future psychotherapy bills. Killing the Rockinghams could be chalked up as a necessary evil; putting this youth out of his misery might actually qualify as a good deed, even if the authorities didn’t see matters that way.

Balint slid on his gloves. He unwrapped the ribbon and stuffed it into his pocket. Even though he’d only done this once before, his actions already seemed like a well-worn routine.

He exited the vehicle and set out across the asphalt. It was a crisp evening. Overhead, in the darkening sky, a solitary planet gleamed. The distance between him and his target was roughly thirty yards. The boy still hadn’t looked up.

At twenty yards, the teen noticed his approach. He eyed Balint curiously. At ten yards, he looked as though he might speak. Balint was literally five feet from the swing set when the kid said, “Hi.” His was a tentative voice, but deeper and more resonant than Balint had expected.

“Hi,” said Balint. “Mind if I join you?”

The teen appeared baffled. He obviously wasn’t accustomed to having his isolation interrupted. But what choice did he have? “Okay,” said the boy.

Balint stepped alongside him, as though he might mount the adjoining swing. Instead he reached out suddenly and wrapped his hands around the teen’s neck. Maybe it was the shock—or maybe the kid felt resigned to what was coming—but he offered surprisingly little resistance. He pried at his assailant’s fingers for a few seconds; then his entire body went limp and heavy like a waterlogged blanket.

Balint dragged the corpse to a nearby hedge. With the dexterity of a trained assassin, he removed the boy’s winter coat to gain better access to his neck, and using a nearby rock, sliced free twenty-four inches of ribbon. He coiled the ribbon around the flabby neck and tied a bow. Then a better idea struck him—and he cut loose another two strands of trim.

He wrapped the additional green strands around the boy’s throat. Three ribbons for victim number three. That would give them a distinctive pattern. Not even the most incompetent of investigators could avoid taking notice.