The Strangler

8

A little before eleven, the cold deepened. A frigid current streamed past. Long strings of Christmas lights stirred on snow-shagged trees.

The baby Jesus trembled in his wheelbarrow. Long way from Bethlehem.

Joe stomped his feet, paced in circles. His shoes were the only thing that fit him. His pants and shirt collar were unbuttoned. The whole damn uniform had shrunk. He’d have to ask Kat to let the pants out a little. The wool overcoat was good, at least. But the exposed parts, his nose and ears and eyes, were singed. He kept an eye on the Union Club across Park Street. They’d got to know him there the past few nights, and they were pretty good about letting him come in out of the cold. The bartender even stood him a nip before he closed up every night. In a few minutes he’d go across and warm up a little. He could keep an eye on the creche from there for a while.

This was Joe’s penance, standing guard over the Nativity scene on Boston Common overnight. The same punishment befell a lot of cops in Station Sixteen at Christmastime, but in the case of Joe Daley, with his televised humiliation and his demotion and his obdurate swagger, the assignment struck his brother cops as particularly laughable. Not that Joe meant to stand there all night. After midnight, he would relocate to the lobby of the nearest hotel, the Parker House, leaving his Lord and Savior to fend for Himself. He would circle past the manger scene a few times during the night and check in from the call box on Tremont Street, but he did not mean to freeze to death out here guarding a fucking doll collection.

At 10:55-Joe knew the time precisely because he was counting down to eleven o’clock when he would walk across to the Union Club to warm up-there was a loud smash from the bottom of the hill, somewhere on Tremont. It was glass shattering, but in the cold the noise was a dull crack, like the snap of a heavy branch. A smash-and-grab, probably, or drunks down on Washington Street. Joe took off running as fast as he dared on the icy downhill. He had to admit, as much as he wanted to call himself a detective, this was the sort of police work he was meant for. This was Joe at his most natural. He was a good reactor, he could impose himself on a situation, he could make things right, or at least make things better. Detective work was infuriatingly slow and irresolute. It was Miss Marple stuff, not police work. This-running like hell after a bad guy-was police work.

Meanwhile, in the manger all was peaceful. The wind shivered the statuettes and the tufts of grimy hay. The Virgin Mary listed fifteen degrees to starboard.

From the top of Park Street, the direction opposite the smashing glass, came Ricky. He was slightly out of breath. He wore a wool cap and leather jacket and Jack Purcells. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. In the Common he took a few mincing slide-steps over the ice to the Nativity scene and stood before it. Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin. He glanced around, then one by one he turned the statues around so they would see nothing, Mary, Joseph, the Magi, a donkey, two sheep, a family of very pious and awestruck Bakelite bunnies. He would leave no witnesses. When he’d rearranged the others, he lifted the baby Jesus out of His straw bed. “Now who left you out here in just a diaper?” he asked the child, who stared back with a conspiratorial beatific smile. He tucked the statue under his arm like a football and strolled off, his sneakers crunching in the snow.

There was a soft knock and Amy, still in her work dress, went to the door. “Who is it?”

“The Strangler.”

“Very funny. What do you want?”

“Um, to strangle you? That’s, you know, what I do.”

“Sorry, not interested.”

“Come on, just a little?”

“I said no. Go strangle yourself.”

“That’s how I got through high school. Come on, help me out.”

She opened the door a crack to see Ricky posing cheek to cheek with the statue of the Christ child. “Oh, Jesus,” she said.

“Precisely.”

“Does this mean I’m dying?”

“No, no. He just came to visit.”

“Oh, thank God. I mean, thank You.” Amy stood back to let him pass. “I suppose you have an explanation.”

“Yes. I found Jesus.”

“Ha, ha. Let me guess. That’s the one Joe is supposed to be watching.”

“Exactamente.”

“And what do you intend to do with…Him?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I thought maybe you could hold on to Him for a while.”

“Like a hostage.”

“No, like a good-luck charm. That’s His job, you know.”

“You’ll rot in hell for this.”

“Anything for a scoop, Aim. You want the story? I’ll give you an exclusive: ‘Jesus Statue Stolen; Brazen Theft Right Under Dumb-Ass Cop’s Nose.’ Now, if that doesn’t move paper, then I give up.”

“You know, you Daleys aren’t nearly as fascinating to anyone else as you are to yourselves. Why don’t you leave poor Joe alone? He’s got enough trouble.”

“Come on, this is news. The public has a right to know.”

“Sorry. We’re a family newspaper. We don’t blaspheme.”

Ricky wandered over to the dining room table, which was covered with papers, manila folders, handwritten notes, photos of women bloody and contorted. “What’s all this?”

“It’s work. Try it sometime.”

“Hey, I work.”

Amy sniffed.

“Since when are you covering the Strangler thing?”

“They assigned the story today. We’re reviewing it, me and Claire.” Claire Downey was the other girl reporter at the Observer. The paper liked to team them up. They were good, and the two-girl byline was a novelty, especially on crime cases.

“Hasn’t that story been written to death? What’s the new angle?”

“Between us?”

“Between us.”

“The angle is that BPD screwed up the investigation.”

“Did they?”

“All I know is I’m looking through these reports and even I can see the mistakes. The crime scenes, the interviews, the leads they’ve missed-it’s a disaster, Ricky. Well, you can read it in the paper, same as everyone else.”

He picked up one of the photos and examined it idly. It showed a room, a stained carpet, various marks and arrows drawn on it. “Maybe you’d better keep this little guy. You might need Him.” He propped the statue on a counter.

“Just take it with you. I’m not stashing your stolen property.”

“Now that’s blasphemy.”

“No, that’s your…work. I wish you wouldn’t bring it here.”

Ricky frowned. But he was feeling buoyant at the thought of Joe and the empty manger, and he did not want to argue. Ricky was determined not to acknowledge her sour mood, not to become snarled in it. He shuffled to the refrigerator. A few eggs, a block of American cheese, a loaf of Wonder bread. “You know what you need, Miss Ryan? A wife.”

“The job’s yours if you want it. You know that.”

“Maybe just for tonight.” He came to her and put his arms around her waist. “I’ll be the wife. You can be the Fuller brush salesman.”

She forced a smile but it faded.

“What?”

“You know what.”

He groaned.

“Don’t worry, Ricky, we won’t talk about it. It’s late.”

“It’s not that late. Come on, let’s go somewhere. Down to Wally’s. We’ll have a drink, hear some music, take your mind off things.”

“Ricky, some people have to get up for work.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Maybe I should go.”

“No.” She laid her head on his chest. “You can stick around if you want.”

Ricky blinked uncertainly. He was not used to seeing Amy unnerved. He was not used to-and had no interest in-comforting her. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Strangler stuff? Those pictures?”

She shrugged.

“Come on. Did you read the paper today? The police commissioner says the odds of getting attacked by the Strangler are two million to one. Two million to one! The whole city’s in a panic-for what? You’re more likely to get run over by a car.”

“I know, I know.”

She felt his collarbone against her forehead. Under her hands, Ricky’s lower back was hard as a shell. He had a little boy’s wiry body. It felt unbreakable.

“Ricky, maybe we could just stay in tonight.”

“Nah, I need to get out. Come on. One beer. You can sleep when you get old.”

Amy felt with the tips of her fingers for the furrow at the center of Ricky’s back. She traced the backbone as it rose to the flat of the coccyx, and her anxiety receded.

“I never thought you were a worrier, Aim.”

“I’m not a worrier. I don’t care about the Strangler.”

She felt Ricky tap her shoulder blades in mock comfort. The gesture conveyed there, there and at the same time stop hugging me, let me go. A little chill went through her. Ricky was a consummate faker, but tonight he could not even be bothered to fake for her. He just wanted a playmate. Maybe that was all there was to Ricky, at least that was as much of him as Amy would ever have. Was it enough? A sentence repeated in her mind: I don’t know if I can do this anymore. But she did not say it. Probably she never would say it. She would never possess him, she knew that. Ricky was nimble and sheathed in an athlete’s confidence, and of course he was a man; he was not available to be possessed. She wanted him anyway. And if he never married her? Was it worth spinsterhood, did she want him even at that price? Yes, she thought. Yes yes yes yes yes.

“Ricky, I love you, you know.”

“Okay.”

“No, the correct response is ‘I love you too, Amy.’”

“I love you too, Amy.”

She squeezed him. Yes yes yes. Maybe a few months earlier, she might have felt differently. But now she and Ricky were entangled. And in the year of the Strangler, well, even if all Ricky had to offer was his charm and his good strong back, Amy thought it might be enough. She had a sense that the city’s mood-the Strangler hysteria, all that mean, selfish, instinctive fear which everyone seemed to feel-carried with it an insight. What was happening in Boston was a passing revelation: The Strangler had taught them there was no safety inside the herd. Everyone was vulnerable. Death could strike out of a clear blue sky, like Oswald’s bullet. If that was true…then yes yes yes, she did want him, at any price.

“Come on, let’s go. We’ll hear some music, you’ll feel better.”

“Okay,” she said.

He bustled around, gathering up her coat and purse before she changed her mind. He held up the statue. “Bring Him?”

She shook her head.

“Right, there might be a cover.” Ricky turned to place the statue back on the counter carefully. “You know, for a second there I thought you were going soft on me.”

“Never,” she said to his back.