Strangled (5 page)

Once
in a cab on Arlington Street, I belted out the number to the
Record
morgue, which isn’t really a morgue at all, even if the people in it can seem half-dead some of the time. No, it’s journalese for the newspaper library. I asked them to check again what I had already failed to find, which was any reference to the term
Phantom Fiend
in our computer database of
Record
stories.

“Where to?” the cabdriver asked as I flipped the telephone shut.

Good question. I checked my watch — ten o’clock — and thought about how the plane I was supposed to be aboard with Maggie Kane was just touching down in Los Angeles. The plan had been to spend our wedding night at Raffles L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills before grabbing an early-morning connection to Hawaii and enjoying a blissful week of sun and sex at a world-class resort.

And here I was, the brokenhearted pen pal to a possible murderer, sitting in the back of an idling cab with what smelled like a quasi-eaten Big Mac in a discarded bag on the floor.

But back to the question at hand: Where to? My head hurt. My muscles ached. I felt like the entire world was a crowded elevator ride, only the elevator was broken and we were all standing still, looking at the numbers above the doors, frozen in time and place.

“The Hatch Shell, please. Over on the Esplanade.”

The cabdriver, an older gentleman with a graying ponytail, turned and looked at me for the first time. “Excuse me?” he asked, not so much curious as incredulous.

“You know, the Hatch Shell. The Fourth of July concert and all that. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ ”

“You’re aware that this is March twenty-first, right, not the fricking Fourth of July?”

I replied, “Can you roll the window down? Now that I’m with you, I might as well fling my Palm Pilot away.”

Truth is, I didn’t actually use a Palm Pilot, but still thought the line was pretty good. He didn’t. Rather, he turned back around with something of an eye roll and a huff, and lurched away from the front doors of the Ritz, bound for Storrow Drive.

You see, I had an idea, one that involved exercise for the body and therapy for the mind. My gym was closed at this hour, so that option was taken off the table. Last time I shot baskets at the court near my waterfront condominium, someone nearly shot me, so I preferred not to do that. I was indulging in the next best thing.

My phone rang. It was Howard from the
Record
library.

“I’m getting no hits off the phrase
Phantom Fiend,
” he said. He said this in a voice so soft and a tone so flat that I had to wonder if he was taking this morgue nickname to an unhealthy extreme.

I thanked him. He returned to his coffin or wherever it is that he goes between pesky calls from reporters. I looked up as the cabdriver was pulling off Storrow Drive into a little parking area next to the famed Hatch Shell, an open-air stage that sits hard by the Charles River in downtown Boston.

“Where?” he asked, not very polite now.

“Here’s fine.” I paid him as if this was the most normal destination in the city, and casually got out of the car. He pulled back into traffic. I took a minute to let my eyes adjust to the dark.

The wind was blowing downriver from the west, colder than I had anticipated, but invigorating just the same. To my left was the lawn where thousands upon thousands of people would cram in with coolers, baskets, and blankets for the annual Fourth of July concert and fireworks celebration. At the moment, it was dark and empty, the grass still brown and spare from a long, snowy winter. To my right was the stage that would be filled with the Boston Pops Orchestra on that same holiday night. Now it was vacant and forlorn, looking like the open mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy abandoned in the corner of a dark bedroom. I bundled my overcoat around myself and set off toward the water.

With each step, the traffic noise of the roadway faded, and the sounds of my wingtips on the gravelly pavement grew more pronounced. I felt my muscles start to twitch with adrenaline. I felt my head begin to lighten with the anticipation of exercise.

I approached the old brick edifice of the Union Boat Club, a rare building on the miles-long expanse of the Esplanade, which is the local name for the grassy bank of this storied river. I pulled my key chain from my pocket and fidgeted beneath a floodlight for the right key. I put it inside a rusty lock on a rickety knob, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The smell was one of all-encompassing mustiness, like another year, a different season, had sat here frozen in time. I flicked a wall switch and an overhead light came on, illuminating a small, barely furnished office. I had taken up rowing the year before, and the club was nice enough to accept me as a member in good standing.

I opened yet another door and walked into a vast, dark space. Again, I flicked a wall switch and the large storage garage lit up, revealing stacks of sculling boats hanging on all four walls, as well as piles of weathered oars.

I yanked open the garage door, which made more noise than I expected, carried the shell down to the nearby dock, and returned to the building. I grabbed a couple of oars, wriggled into a life vest, donned an old down parka that had probably been hanging on a peg since the first Roosevelt administration, and headed back to the dock.

Let’s not kid around here: it was cold out, and given that I had just taken up the sport of crew, I had never been on the water in this kind of weather. For that matter, I had never been on the water this deep into a dark night. But the moon was bright and the sight lines were good and I’d heat up within the down jacket as soon as I began rowing. The wingtips might be a little awkward, but hey, life’s a little bit awkward most of the time.

Once on the water, the first push with my legs and pull on the oars felt impossible, like my ribs might crack apart and fall through the black skin of the river. The boat tilted sideways, and I leaned toward the other side to balance it out and pulled on the oars again, a little smoother this time. Still, the boat was wobbly. I straightened it out again and took another pull. Better. And another. Before I knew it, I was thirty yards offshore, the boat’s nose heading directly upwind, which was good, because it kept the howling air at my back.

Suddenly, I had movement and a rhythm, thrusting with my legs, pulling with my arms and back, sliding across the surface. Thrusting, pulling, thrusting, pulling. The whole thing was as therapeutic as I had imagined, though I probably could’ve been locked up in a special room with white padding for being out there at that hour on a March night.

Inevitably, my mind wandered. I thought of Peter Martin pressing me earlier that day for a story that I didn’t yet have. I thought of Maggie Kane, wherever she was, running from, well, me. I thought of the Phantom Fiend, whoever he was, and Vinny Mongillo holding court among cops in the ballroom of the Ritz. I thought ahead to the immediate future, how there were too few answers to too many questions on too many fronts — always a dangerous deficit in my line of work. And then my mind wandered far enough afield that I was thinking of nothing at all but my breath and my motion and the little splashes of cold water with each steady row.

Finally, I began thinking of the soft purring I heard in the distance and looked overhead to see if a medical chopper was fluttering down the river toward Massachusetts General Hospital. I saw no lights.

The sound grew louder, grinding closer. I slowed down my rowing and looked to my left, and then to my right, and saw a tiny flashlight hovering over the water about a hundred yards away toward the middle of the river — apparently a boat. I assumed it was a state police trooper on late-night patrol — someone who was undoubtedly wondering what kind of moron was rowing in a scull at this hour.

Sure enough, the sound of the engine got louder still, the light brighter. I pulled the oars up and rested for a moment, the wind still banging at my neck, the sky unusually bright above. The light continued toward me, close enough that I could hear voices — men, I believe, shouting above the din of the outboard.

About twenty yards away, I could see what looked to be the outlines of a small powerboat, perhaps a Boston whaler. I could make out the silhouettes of two people standing inside it. One of them appeared to be peering through binoculars or some sort of nightscope at me. I thought I heard one of them say to the other, “No life jacket,” though I could have been wrong, what with the wind and the engine and my own labored breathing. If he did say it, he was wrong; the vest happened to be concealed by the blocky down parka. I failed to see, it’s worth noting, any sort of blue police light on the visiting boat.

At about fifteen yards away, I called out, “Can I help you?” Granted, it was a dumb question; I was in a scull, they were in a powerboat. But I thought it might be advantageous, at least to me, to get a dialogue started.

In response, I got no response, except that the driver of the boat gunned the engine and veered sharply to his left — toward the rear of my shell. He zipped off toward the shore, the boat melting into the darkness.

My shell, meanwhile, rocked violently from his wake, almost to the point of capsizing. I struggled to maintain equilibrium, like a cowboy on a bucking bronco, until the waves settled down and I finally achieved it.

And then came the grinding sound all over again, this time in my face, meaning from the rear of the scull. It got louder more quickly than before, though with no light. Soon I saw the powerboat, first as a hazy form, then in greater definition. It came roaring at me, its speed increasing, and cut just to my right, coming within five yards of the side of my boat. It appeared to be the Union Club’s small powerboat that was kept in the storage garage.

Again I surged sideways. I could feel my entire right side up in the air, as if I was on one of those amusement park rides that used to invariably make me puke as a kid. I tucked my head down, preparing to flip over, but miraculously came just short of the tipping point, a phrase I understood more intimately at that moment than I ever intended. I splashed back down on the river, the water hitting my face, my arms, and my hair. I rocked back and forth for another couple of minutes before the waves died down again.

Okay, so these weren’t cops. But who?

I could still hear the whir of their outboard motor, but could no longer see the craft. As I held my balance, I started thinking where else a heartbroken reporter amid a potentially huge story would have gone to wash away his sorrow and anxieties. The Bristol Lounge at the Four Seasons wouldn’t have been a bad choice; the worst thing that could have happened is that someone might have tipped my wineglass over rather than my scull. But no, here I was in the middle of the Charles River legitimately wondering if I’d ever get back to terra firma alive.

I pointed the boat toward the shoreline and started rowing madly. Louder came the engine. The spotlight suddenly illuminated again, shining directly in my eyes. I heard someone on the boat say, “The bastard’s still up.” Probably not for long, I wanted to tell them, but didn’t have the time. They accelerated toward me from the front of the boat, meaning from my back, veered off again at the last minute, and sped away. And in one giant swell, I flipped helplessly into the water, as if it was my destiny.

I probably don’t have to report how cold the Charles River felt in the middle of an unseasonably cool Boston March, but I will. I will. It was fucking freezing. It was the type of cold that made you believe your fun parts would never again be any fun — in fact, they’d probably have to be amputated in the off chance you got out of this alive. It was mind-numbing, head-pounding, body-enveloping cold.

Immediately, I bobbed back to the surface and resisted the urge to scream for help. The only people who would have heard me were the same people trying to drown me. I treaded water and let my eyes adjust. The scull was but a few feet from me; the shoreline to my right about fifty yards away.

That’s when I heard the motor again and saw the light sweeping across the black skin about ten yards to my left. If they saw me, they would try again to kill me. As much as I couldn’t believe I was doing this, I dove under the freezing water in the direction of my boat, surfaced just in front of it, jockeyed underneath it, and pushed my face up into the air pocket where I had previously sat.

I could feel my body going completely numb, to the point that I wondered if I would eventually be able to swim for shore. I could sense my head going woozy, as if I might pass out, in which case I knew I wouldn’t be getting to shore. I thought of the time I dove into the frigid waters of Boston Harbor after an intruder, as well as the afternoon I had to paddle through a Florida swamp to get away from an attacker who preferred me dead. I spent more time in the damned drink than a trainer at SeaWorld. I made a mental note to bill the
Record
for some swimming lessons if I ever got out of this mess alive.

Finally, I could hear the outboard engine sputtering slowly just a few feet away, causing little ripples as it circled the scull.

I heard one of my would-be killers say, “He’s in the drink, and he’s not surviving more than five minutes in those temperatures.”

No kidding.

I heard the second man say, “Let’s get out of here.” The engine roared, and then quickly faded from earshot. I ducked back underwater, surfaced again in the open river, and thrashed slowly toward the shore.

What seemed like five days later, I made it. I staggered across some large rocks, up onto the grassy expanse, and collapsed onto my knees. I didn’t know much about hypothermia, but I did know this: Do not fall asleep. I’d be a goner. So I forced myself up and plodded onward, across a field, along a paved, lighted path, and toward a footbridge over Storrow Drive. The one advantage of being this cold was that I had reached a point of not being able to feel a thing. It was as if I was watching myself amble onward rather than actually doing it.

Finally, I made it over to the other side of the bridge into Back Bay. I lurched down an alley, got to Beacon Street, and began frantically waving at traffic. Within two seconds, a car, a cab no less, screeched to a halt. I fumbled with the door handle. Truth is, my hands were so cold that I had lost any refined motor skills. It took both hands to finally pry it open, and I slumped into the seat with a mix of abject fear and absolute relief.