Free Strangled by Brian McGrory Page A

always uses, in the same clipped manner.
    I said, “Someone slipped an envelope under my apartment door that I found this morning. Inside, a one-line note said, ‘Back again. More women will die,’ in the same typeface, with the same signature as before. It contained the driver’s license of a woman by the name of Lauren Hutchens. Phone listings have her at 558 Park Drive. I’ve tried to reach her, but with no success.”
    Just the facts, ma’am. I was only trying to do my job, and maybe save a woman’s life, though increasingly, I doubted the latter was possible. I don’t believe in the supernatural. I really don’t. But I could almost feel her on the other side of that door, and the feeling I had wasn’t of her moving about.
    After what I thought was a pretty good summation of the situation, I heard silence in response — continued silence from inside the apartment, new silence now from Detective Foley. In a job that relies on people telling me things, silence spells trouble. He finally said, “We’ll check it out.” He paused, then added, “After we do, I need to see you today, face-to-face, with that envelope in hand. Don’t mess it up by letting multiple people touch it. If you think you’re going to turn a murder investigation into a fucking media circus, then you need to learn a lesson or two on how we’re going to operate here.” He hung up the phone without so much as a good-bye.
    Mongillo had leaned close to hear both sides of the conversation. I ended up with a craving for pepperoni out of the deal. We both leaned against the hallway wall in silence, though what we were waiting for, I couldn’t actually say.
    Within about thirty seconds, we heard the faint sound of a siren. Then louder, and louder still. Then we heard something else: a soft tap, followed by a slightly louder bang — coming from the other side of the apartment door. If my heart had been beating any harder, I could have been cited on some sort of noise ordinance violation.
    Mongillo looked at me. I looked at Mongillo. I lunged toward the door and banged on it again, saying firmly and authoritatively, “Police on the way. Open up. Now.”
    Nothing. Nothing but silence. The siren by now was blaring outside the building, stagnant. Mongillo said, “I’m going downstairs to let them in.” He hustled to the elevator, oddly graceful in motion for a man his size, and I stood watch over the door, having no idea if it might open, and if it did, what lurked within.
    Was she alive? Was she dead? If the latter, was her killer still here?
    Before any of these questions could be answered, four cops — two in plain clothes, two in uniform — burst into the hallway, having just stepped off the elevator before Mongillo even reached them.
    One of them said, “Hey, Vinny, what’s shaking?”
    Mongillo said, “For the moment, Woody, just me.”
    They rushed down toward yours truly. I pointed at the door and said, probably needlessly, “It’s locked.”
    One of the uniformed guys said, “There’s a property manager’s office in the basement. I’ll check for a key.”
    “We’ve heard some noises coming from inside,” I said.
    The other uniformed officer said, “Fuck it. Stand back.” He let forth with a ferocious kick just above the knob.
    The door exploded open in a haze of splinters and noise. The first sensation I had was that of cold air gushing into the hallway from an open window inside. The second sensation I had was an impulse to vomit. Sitting in a chair angled directly at the door from the middle of the living room was the body of a young woman. She was wearing a nightshirt that was hoisted up around her waist and torn by her chest. She had dried blood around her eyes and on her upper lip beneath her nose. Her legs were splayed far apart. A ligature, which looked to be an electrical cord, was wrapped around her neck and dangled off to one side. And right beneath her chin, a big looping red bow hung toward the other