Chapter Eighteen #2
They all nod, assessing one another, comparing the facts to their own experiences, the people their husbands killed, seeing if it adds up.
“Well, that fits,” Beverley eventually concludes. “Especially for you, Elsie.” Albert was exactly thirty-five when he was put away at San Quentin. And Henry was thirty-six.
“Maybe someone who seems trustworthy,” posits Elsie. “Don’t they think the Boston Strangler posed as a utility guy, a super? That’s why those women let him into their apartments. Maybe our guy does the same?”
“Sicko.” Margot pulls out her cigarettes.
“Do we know anything about other demographics?”
“Just that, overwhelmingly, these killers are white and male,” says Elsie. “At least the ones the newspapers can be bothered to report on are.”
“The world’s untouchables.” Margot takes a drag on her Lucky Strike. “And why do they do it?”
Beverley pictures the long pink room, the stools, the glass—Henry’s gaze burning her skin.
“Did you ever ask Stephen?” Elsie asks, and Beverley is grateful that the focus is not on her.
“I did,” Margot admits, “the last time I saw him before he…” She waves a hand. “Do you know what he said?” She looks at them both. “He said he was bored.”
Elsie lets out a quick breath of shock.
“Can you believe that? He said he was getting bored by politics, that he needed a challenge.”
Beverley scoffs disgustedly.
“He was too clever for his own good,” Margot concedes. “That’s why he acted so superior all the time. He thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was owed the power that politics would give him, because people just needed him to tell them what to do.”
“Okay,” Elsie says after a while. “So, boredom. It’s an odd one but it’s going on the list. What other reasons are there? What else makes men commit mass murder? Why do they kill?”
“Money?” Margot blows smoke from the side of her mouth.
“Financial gain.” Elsie nods, writes it down. “But these girls were college students, part-time models, barely more than children. They didn’t have money. Bev, have you noticed any sort of pattern in terms of motive in the clippings you collect? Anything in the letters people have written you?”
Beverley frowns for a moment, then nods. “There is something, but I’m not sure if it will help.”
Elsie holds her pen aloft, waiting.
“Well, many of them, if you look at articles on killers from here or around the world—Australia’s Night Caller, the Argentine Vampire—they mostly say they did it just for the sheer enjoyment.”
“Great.” Margot takes another drag.
“Thrill, lust, power…it made them feel good.”
“But this can’t be just about that,” Elsie argues. “If it was just for the thrill, surely he’d do it indiscriminately, kill when the chance presents itself, something knee-jerk to satisfy an urge.”
“Mm-hmm,” Margot agrees. “Get in and get out.”
“There has to be more to this, because the details are so specific,” continues Elsie. “I don’t think any of our husbands thought as much about the people they were killing or the optics of it all as this guy does.”
“They certainly weren’t as coordinated.” Bev leans in, lowers her voice.
“Henry used different weapons, but I don’t think that was intentional.
He just used whatever he could find. I think it was more about the urge to kill for him.
” Her heart has picked up pace; it always does when she confronts the ugly reality of Henry’s crimes.
“The fire poker.” Margot nods gently.
“Albert got lazy with his, I think.” Elsie tilts her head.
“He must have spent a long time working out how to cover his tracks, how to get rid of everything, how not to get caught, until he…” She trails off.
Beverley knows she’s talking about the body that was found at Elsie and Albert’s house, in the crawl space—Lucy Glass, one of his students.
He’d followed her into an alleyway with a rope.
“So, with this guy, there’s a message he’s trying to send, along with whatever he derives from killing. Otherwise, why bother with the details? They must have taken planning—particular weapons, places, words, even clothing. But why?”
The women look at one another, stumped.
“What about famous murderers?” Margot offers. “Lee Harvey Oswald—why’d he do it?”
“Lee Harvey Oswald was a schizophrenic,” says Elsie plainly.
“Was he, though?” asks Beverley. “I thought he was just an egomaniac.”
“That’s if JFK is even really dead.” Margot holds her hands up as if confronted by evidence she can’t contest. “I’m just saying…”
“For Christ’s sake, Margot, tell me you did not just say that.” Elsie turns in her seat so her body is faced away from Margot, who takes an extra-long drag on her cigarette.
“Okay,” Elsie continues after a while, shifting stubbornly back to the table.
“So, he’s most likely a man in his mid-thirties, white, who has access to a car and is physically mobile.
” She looks at the notes they’ve made. “He may have an interest in cults or some sort of religious affinity, and his killings have a ritualistic quality, a bit like the Boston Strangler’s.
He’s probably not killing for money, given his victims’ profiles, and I’d question whether it’s for pleasure or other emotional reasons, too—anger, lust. I think it’s something different. ”
“An abnormal motive,” Bev adds.
“Abnormal?” Elsie asks.
“The motive for his killing is obscure, not normal.”
“Is it ever normal?” Margot drains her glass.
“All right. Abnormal motive,” Elsie says. “And we have reason to believe he lives or works within striking distance of the 101.”
“A white guy with a car.” Margot sighs. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at this stuff, Elsie?” She taps the table. “Like puzzles or whatever. Are there rules for solving them?”
“Always start with the obvious,” Elsie answers flatly.
“Well, as I’ve said, he’s obviously a lunatic.”
“There’s other stuff we should be looking for.
” Beverley knows they’re all frustrated, but surely they can do better.
“Stuff we won’t find in the books or the papers, but things we know, like behavioral signs.
Did you notice anything strange about Albert and Stephen in the run-up to their crimes?
Because Henry could be…” Beverley falters.
It’s hard for her to admit, but she still feels an unsettling guilt when she talks this way about Henry—as if she’s betraying him.
She knows no one, not even Margot and Elsie, would ever understand what it’s like to feel that they were married to two different people, to feel that they had a past with a good man—a great father, a hard worker, a friend—but that he simply went away, and in his place: an impostor who brought the world around him crashing down.
“Go on,” Elsie prompts.
Beverley takes a breath. “He could be very controlling.”
“I love you, Bev, but that’s hardly a newsflash,” Margot says gently.
“It got worse,” she adds, “periodically, like in a cycle.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was as if there was this pressure building inside of him. There were times when he’d seem more restless, more short-tempered, more—” She still struggles to say it. “More violent.”
“Did he hurt you often?” Elsie asks quietly.
“In some ways, yes.” She thinks about the scorching barbecue tongs, about hands around her throat, thumbs applying downward force during sex. “He seemed so frustrated sometimes, almost hungry, like he was punishing me for not being able to give him what he so badly needed.”
Elsie nods calmly, encouragingly.
“Then sometimes it was like he wanted to keep me in a cage, make me stay home. There was one time…Well…”
“Bev, we’re in this together,” Margot says. “Nothing you can say will shock us.”
Beverley swallows, continues reluctantly.
“He told me to stay home one day. He basically ordered it. Looking back, I wonder if this was his way of trying to keep me safe—from him. But I couldn’t do it.
My friend Sandie was in town for her father’s funeral, and I said I’d help her buy a dress. I figured Henry would understand that.”
“I’m guessing you figured wrong.”
“He followed us”—Beverley’s fists twist beside her—“in the car. Then, when he caught up with us”—she swallows—“he revved the engine, hard, and the car just came at us, straight up onto the sidewalk, like he’d lost control of the wheel.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Sandie broke a leg.” She shakes her head quickly. “She missed the funeral. Her own father’s funeral.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“Henry said it was an accident, that the gearshift stuck. He seemed really cut up about it at the time.”
“Poor sweetie.” Margot raises an eyebrow.
“Then, that night, he stayed out late. I figured he was drinking to calm his nerves. I was in bed when he got back. Must have been two, three o’clock in the morning. I thought I’d smell the drink on him, but all I smelled was soap. His hair was wet. He’d taken a shower.”
“That’ll do it.” Elsie smiles tightly.
“The next day, though,” Beverley continues, “he was like a different person: kissing me on the cheek, smiling, laughing. He seemed…lighter, satisfied, like he’d had an aching tooth that he’d finally had pulled.”
“He had killed that night, right?” Margot asks.
“Carol Waterford,” she answers. “She was just drinking with friends at a bar.”
There’s a stark silence.
“So, do you think this guy could be showing signs that he’s killing?” Margot asks. “You think someone close to him might be able to tell what he’s doing if they had the right information?”
“I think it’s possible.” Beverley nods. “A wife, a friend, a sister—they might be able to recognize these behaviors. Did you notice changes with Stephen? With Albert?” She looks between them.
“Stephen was a chameleon,” Margot answers. “We were always surrounded by other people—at parties, rallies, whatever—so it was hard to spot. What about Albert?”
Elsie considers, frowning. “There was this look,” she says, “this look he would get in his eyes from time to time. Glazed. Like his body was there but his mind was occupied with something else.”
“His work?”
“No. There was other stuff.” Elsie frowns. “I’d find these magazines stashed down the side of the bed.”
“Ah. Here we go,” Margot enthuses. “The dirty-magazine stage.”
“Not just dirty, though. Shocking. Violent. I can see that now, but back then I didn’t know what I was looking at. Albert was the only guy I ever…” She waves a hand. “I convinced myself it meant he needed more from me—you know, in the bedroom.”
“We know.” Margot nods.
“So I tried, but he couldn’t…see it through. He even said at one point that he wasn’t a very sexual person.”
Beverley scoffs.
“What sort of nonsexual person has those magazines?!”
Margot recaps. “So, we’ve got this sort of violent pressure, the sexual perversions, the look they get in their eyes. Can that really help us catch this guy? What do we do, ask every woman in California whether her husband has a stack of pornos behind the toilet tank?”
“It can help us,” Elsie argues. “I’m sure of it. But what do we actually know now? Margot, did you ask the family about the letters Diane Howard Murray had been writing to that movie guy?”
“Pearl didn’t seem to know anything about them, but I pulled some strings, managed to get myself an invitation to a party he’s throwing tonight. Thought I’d spritz on some Diorissimo, do a bit of undercover work.”
Beverley shifts in her seat. There’s something that’s been ticking over in her head, something about Diane. “Pearl said Diane had been working for a cleaning company, right?” she asks. “Any idea what the name is? Where they’re based?”
“Hmm.” Margot turns the sides of her lips downward. “No specifics per se, but there is this.” She reaches for an envelope on the table and pulls out several photographs, fanning them out.
Diane Howard Murray is a knockout. Even in a photograph, she has the sort of wide, clear eyes that seem as if they are peering into your soul.
“Let me just…” Margot sorts through them, then pulls one out, hands it to Beverley. “She’s got a logo on those overalls, I think. I couldn’t read the name.”
Beverley studies it, but the logo is so small, she can’t make out the name, either.
“Wait a minute.”
Beverley looks up to see Elsie leaning across the table, peering intently at the photograph.
“Show me that.”
She hands it over, and they watch as Elsie squints, then as her mouth falls slowly open.
“What is it?” Margot asks. Beverley leans in closer.
“The logo,” Elsie replies, reaching for her notebook. “I’ve seen it before.”