The Strangler

21

Bridgewater State Hospital.

A detective fiddled with the tape recorder, trying to load a new reel, and when he finally got it, he switched the machine on and gave Wamsley a thumbs-up.

The tape reels turned. They had all been here long enough-this was the second day of Albert DeSalvo’s confession-that they had begun to watch the pattern of the reels, the way the unspooling reel would gradually pick up speed as it emptied. Each of the men dedicated a sliver of attention to monitoring the pattern as he stood listening.

“Alright, I’d like to talk about Joanne Feeney. Do you remember Joanne Feeney?”

“Sure.”

“Alright then, Albert, just tell me everything you remember about that day.”

Albert DeSalvo had a wide, thin-lipped, expressive mouth, and though his face was crowded with too-large features-a bulging, pendulous nose that hung a little off-center, a head of thick dark hair swept back in a cheesy pompadour, a stubborn five o’clock shadow-it was his mouth that dominated. At rest the corners drooped, and his face was sniffy and sullen. But when he smiled, his face became, if not handsome, sunny and likable. At the moment, asked to recall the murder of Joanne Feeney, DeSalvo’s mouth compressed into a frown, a little boy straining to remember where he left a favorite toy.

In a corner of the room Michael crossed his arms to ward off the chill, which might have been winter pressing through the shivering six-over-six windows, or it might have been the horror-movie atmosphere of this place. Bridgewater State was a hospital in name only. It was where Massachusetts sent the maddest of its madmen-including the “criminally insane” and “sexually dangerous”-who were not likely to find a cure anywhere, least of all here. Michael dreaded coming to Bridgewater. Craziness was in the air. There was a constant irrational noise, a rustle of shuffling feet and slamming doors, yips and shouts that echoed off the concrete floors and painted-brick walls. How could anyone take it, the doctors, the guards? To Michael, the place seemed to have floated out of some Victorian English fog like a ghost ship.

But here was Albert DeSalvo, the man who, improbably but enthusiastically, was claiming to be the Boston Strangler.

His lawyer was present as well, Leland Bloom, without doubt the best-known lawyer in Boston, maybe the best-known in the country. “The Perry Mason of Boston,” the newspapers called him. Bloom had won acquittals in a series of highly publicized cases, and been photographed for The Saturday Evening Post in the cockpit of his Lear jet and on the deck of his sloop. Bloom smoked a pipe while his client confessed to the murders. He seemed pleased. Bloom had negotiated an immunity agreement for DeSalvo. Nothing he said here could be used against him, nor anything the police found as a result of what he said here. And so his client was partaking of a time-honored tradition for men in his position: unburdening himself of every last detail, the better to wrap that immunity around him like a cloak. That, at least, was what everybody thought. But Bloom, with his pipe and his confident harrumphing, made them wonder. What was he up to? Bloom was an egomaniac and a self-promoter and a prodigal liar, but he was not stupid. So why was he letting his client do this? Who in his right mind would confess to being the Boston Strangler?

“I went over there-this is the one in the West End over there?”

Wamsley: “Right.”

“I went over there, and this was on Grove Street, I think it was, over near the Mass. General. This was August, I believe.”

Wamsley: “November.”

“November. I confused her with the other one. I didn’t know the names, you understand? This is the one the same time as Kennedy died, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“A Friday, I think?”

“That’s right.”

“This is the one with the music? The-whattaya call it?-the longhair music. She had it on the hi-fi.”

Wamsley: “That’s the one. Go ahead.”

“Okay. That day, I remember I was not planning on doing anything. I was just thinking, about Kennedy, this and that, I guess. I was on the main drag, just walking. And I felt the thing start building up in me, you understand what I mean? The sex thing, the image was building. And I was just walking around. I went up Grove there. It’s a little hill. And the building, there was three or four steps up, then there was a buzzer-type door? And on the right there was a list of buttons. I just looked for a button with a woman’s name on it. I don’t even know why, I don’t know exactly what I was thinking. So I go in and I start to go up the stairs-”

Wamsley: “What did the hallway look like, the stairs?”

“It was just a regular hallway. I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Describe it.”

“Describe it how? Cuz, I mean, I don’t really see-If you tell me what you want to know, I’ll describe it but, see, I don’t really know, I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

There were two detectives from BPD Homicide in the room, Brendan Conroy and the Homicide Commander, John Maginnis. Both stared at DeSalvo skeptically.

“Just tell me what the hall looked like, the entryway.”

“It was just a hall. You came in and the stairs were right there. You just went straight, I think, up the stairs.”

“Straight? Or right?”

“Might have been right. Sort of straight right.”

“Okay. What next?”

“I went up the stairs. Mrs. Feeney-I didn’t know that was her name; I’m just saying this now, you understand-when I got up there Mrs. Feeney was standing out on the landing there, watching me come up.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was old. See, that’s what I mean. Like I was saying, this one I don’t think it was about the sex. I mean, it was definitely about the sex. But she was an old lady and it, it was just different, you understand me?”

“I understand. What did she look like waiting on the landing?”

“She was old. She had kind of black hair.”

“Black?”

“Kind of black and white. Like, I don’t know how to say it.”

“Salt and pepper?”

“Yeah, salt and pepper. And she was wearing a robe. I remember that. It was red with a kind of a pattern.”

“What was it made of?”

“Cotton.”

“Plain cotton?”

“No, it was a funny kind of-there was kind of a pattern in it.”

“What kind of pattern?”

“Just like circles, in the cotton.”

“Did it have a lining? What color was the lining?”

“It definitely had a lining. I know that. But I could not see the lining at that point. Just let me-”

“Alright, go ahead.”

“I told her the super sent me to check the windows, and she said she did not hear nothing about it and she wasn’t sure and all this, because of everything that was going on and everything. Everybody worried about the Strangler. So I said, ‘Well, if you’re not interested, if you don’t want to have the work done, I don’t care, it’s all the same to me.’ This is what I always say, you understand me, and this is where they always change their minds. I think maybe it’s because when I say it, I really mean it, you understand? I really don’t care if they let me in or not, at that moment. In fact part of me is kind of hoping they don’t let me in so I don’t do…these things. Like I said, this one, all these ones with the old ladies, it’s not a sex thing. Not exactly.”

“Then what is it, Albert? You do have sex with them.”

“Yeah, but it’s not-I don’t know. I don’t know. Anyways, she lets me in and I tell her the same thing. It doesn’t matter what you say to them, see? I could have said ‘check the pipes’ or ‘check the heat.’ I say different things to them. But this one, I tell her the same thing: I need to see the windows in the bedroom and does she mind showing me where the bedroom is.”

“So she let you in willingly?”

“Yeah. Showed me right in.”

“What did the apartment look like when you went in?”

“It was just…There was like a hallway kind of in the center. And as you come in, I think you go, I think right, and there was a room there with chairs.”

“What kind of chairs?”

“Just, I don’t know, plain chairs.”

“Straight-back chairs, you mean.”

“Yeah, straight-back chairs. And a table. Kind of like a kitchen, like an eating room. And then down the hall, in the back, was the bedroom. So we get in there and she’s kind of leaning over, clearing some things off the windowsill so I can get in there and do the work. And I saw the back of her head and that was when I did it. I hit her. There was a little, like a statue there. I hit her with that right here, behind the ear.

“So she just falls down. I think she was already dead, I’m not really sure. I got a pillowcase offa the bed and I tied it around her.”

“Just a pillowcase?”

“Yeah. I tied it around her neck. She was lying there.”

“What about the pillow? What did you do with it?”

“Oh, I put it under her, under her rear end. I tried to turn off the music, but I could not figure out how to work the hi-fi set, there was something weird about it, so I just left it. Then, you know, I strangled her with the pillowcase. I pulled it tight, twisted it kind of.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Yeah, there was sex.”

“Describe it.”

“Describe it? It was just sex. I put my…you know.”

“You penetrated her?”

“Yes, there was definite penetration.”

“In her vagina.”

Pause. “Yes, in her vagina.”

“Did you ejaculate?”

“Definitely.”

“Inside her?”

“I think so. I might have pulled out, but I think it was inside her.”

“You’re sure?”

“No, not absolutely sure. I might have pulled out, you know, come on the floor.”

“You ejaculated on the floor.”

“Yes, I think so. I’m pretty sure of it.”

“What next?”

“I left.”

“Before you left?”

“Well, I put her, I kind of locked her feet in the chair.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t-like I said, I don’t know why I do these things. I don’t like to talk about it because a-the whole thing-well, I gotta talk about it whether I like it or not, don’t I? I don’t know why I did it. I just did it.”

“What did you do next?”

“I just left.”

“You left quickly, you ran out? Or you looked around the apartment first, left it a mess?”

“No, I looked around the apartment. I didn’t make a big mess of it or nothing, but I looked through some of the drawers and everything. She had a little cash there, just maybe five bucks or something, and I took that, but that was all I ever took. That’s not what this was about, you understand? I took that and then I left.”

There was quiet. The tape reels squeaked as they turned. Somewhere outside the room a guard laughed.

The detectives stared.

DeSalvo raised his right hand-later much would be made of the size of his hands, the strength they purportedly carried, but they did not seem exceptional at the time-and he held the hand up in the traditional pose that says I swear.