Distemper Read online

  Melissa was wandering through the crowd snapping pictures, wearing the photo-safari vest that makes her look like Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. The campus cops were not happy. At least nobody was chanting.

  “Hey there, Miss Alex,” she said. “What do you make of this spectacle?”

  “Drag. Nobody’s chained to anything.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Get any good shots?”

  “Fat cop with a hacksaw.”

  “Pulitzer time.”

  “I wonder what they’re after.”

  “All of bio’s in this building, so take your pick. I’m betting fetal pigs.”

  “Heads up. Here comes the flack brigade.”

  I turned around and saw the new vice president for university relations and two of his assistants coming our way. Phil Herzog got hired after his predecessor was shipped off to minimum-security work camp for drunk driving. The new guy was considerably less of a jerk but every bit as unhelpful. That part is inevitable, though: our job is to report the news, and his is to filter out all the bad stuff and leave us with the vanilla-pudding dregs that make parents and donors sleep at night. It’s not what you’d call a mutually satisfying relationship.

  Melissa slipped off, leaving me to deal with Herzog and his crew on my own. But when they were twenty feet away and closing, they and everyone else in the crowd stopped to stare at the line of marchers coming down the middle of the main campus street. There were only about two dozen of them, but they’d already jammed up what passes for rush-hour traffic around here. They were making some horrible noise, and it took me a minute to realize it was coming from four boom boxes playing recorded sounds of screaming animals, presumably at the slaughter. Lovely.

  The campus cops started barking into their walkie-talkies, calling for backup before they were drowned out by the animal screams. The marchers finally drew up in front of the building and spread themselves at various points on the front steps with the precision of a ROTC drill team. As it turned out, there was a good reason they weren’t chanting. They had their mouths covered with duct tape, which made for dramatic effect but was going to hurt like hell when it came off, and they were wearing identical T-shirts that said STOP VIVISECTION.

  That was it. They all just stood there and stared straight ahead with those horrible recordings blaring one on top of the other, out of synch and sounding like teatime at the abattoir. I caught sight of my friend Nicky from the NPR station in Binghamton, who was trying to set sound levels on his recorder, and he gave me a look that translated as what am I supposed to do with these nutbags? I shrugged back. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes, and I was wondering how long the standoff could possibly go on when one of the campus cops had enough. He was a guy in his fifties, red-faced from carrying an extra sixty pounds, and as he stepped from behind me I heard him say four words crowded into one.

  “Sonofabitch.”

  He ran up to the closest kid with a tape player and went to pull it out of her hands, but she held on. He might have chosen a woman because he thought she’d be easier to handle, but if he did he chose wrong. He tried to grab it again, and she wrapped her arms around it tighter, all the while staring straight ahead. He tried to pick her up and the radio along with it, but she collapsed into a heap on the steps and became total deadweight; somebody had obviously given them a primer on civil disobedience.

  “Turn off that goddamn noise!” he shouted, and was about to move on to the next nearest protester when two other campus policemen intercepted him. They talked to him for a minute and the three of them seemed about to walk away when the first cop threw them off, whirled around, and rushed a skinny kid perched on one of the middle steps. He took a swing at him but the kid was too fast, and when the punch didn’t connect the cop lost his balance and nearly toppled over. But he recovered and grabbed the radio with more agility than you’d think he could manage, lifted it over his head, and pitched it down the stairs. One out of four screaming pigs went quiet, and most of the crowd looked like they wanted to kiss the guy.

  He started toward the next radio, his face even redder than before, but all of a sudden he stopped and just keeled over, splat. The EMTs—who always seem to be lurking on the sidelines at such occasions—leaped into action, giving CPR and loading him into an ambulance. The protesters never even looked. I was starting to write the lead in my head. A Benson University public safety officer collapsed during a campus protest in front of a blockaded Dew Hall Wednesday morning. Student activists, clad in identical anti-vivisection T-shirts and wearing duct tape over their mouths, stood around like a bunch of twits while the old guy croaked.

  The dean of students showed up with a megaphone and talked about how the protesters’ concerns would be addressed, but first they had to disperse and let them free the people locked inside the building. It was a lovely speech, but nobody could hear it over the recorded screams of animal torture. The vice president for research picked up the megaphone and started calling for “civil discourse,” but by then the Gabriel city cops were involved and there was no more Mr. Nice Guy. Working in pairs, they handcuffed the protesters with plastic strips and carried them to a bus, which whisked them away, boom boxes and all. So much for getting some quotes.

  The doors were still locked by the time I left an hour later; they finally had to bring in a glazier from the buildings and grounds department to cut through one of the glass panes and let the people out. Herzog had told me that they were going to charge the perpetrators with unlawful imprisonment, vandalism, and malicious mischief. But since there was no way to prove that the protesters had anything to do with sealing up the building like a giant brick Tupperware, in the end all they got hit with was disorderly conduct—and only the four kids with the noisemakers, at that.

  I was in the newsroom working on the story and eating a bagel with green olive cream cheese when Mad came over and deposited an envelope on my desk. It was addressed to “Police Reporter.”

  “Guess who dropped us a line.”

  “Junior’s Aunt Thelma?”

  “I hope not. Open it.”

  It was one typed page, single-spaced with no margins—the format of choice for raving lunatics with something to share. For years, we’ve been getting letters from God that start like this: “This is the Lord your Savior, speaking to you through my earthly son, Jethro.” Return address, Texarkana.

  This one was obviously different. For one thing, there were no typos, nothing crossed out or whited over. And for another, it was signed The Devil’s Disciple. The text went like this:

  You think I have only killed two but there are many many more. They thought they could look down on me but I am the one. I am in control. I decide who lives and who dies. I have the power. I will determine when to be merciful and when to take my vengeance on the ones who have disobeyed.

  They cannot hide from me. I watch them in secret as they walk pretending they do not fear me. But I can smell it. They are afraid of me and they should be. In my mind I can see them under me, and my hands around their necks, and I watch as the life God gave them is taken away by something much much stronger.

  They lock their doors at night. They huddle together and hope I will go away. But I will stay until my destiny is fulfilled and my job is done. How many will there be? How many does the master crave? That is the question and only I know the answer.

  I will act again soon.

  I dropped the paper on the desk like it was crawling with cockroaches. Even insect-free it gave me the willies. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “You think it’s for real?”

  “Like I’m the expert?”

  I read through it again. It was less scary the second time around. “You know what, Mad? I don’t know if I buy it.”

  “Huh?”

  “It sounds to me like whoever wrote this has been watching too goddamn many X-Files.”

  “You mean it’s a fake?”

  “It’s just so, I d
on’t know… predictable.”

  “You’re criticizing a serial killer for bad writing?”

  I shrugged. “What are we supposed to do with this thing?”

  “Damned if I know. Bill’s out, so let’s ask the boss.”

  We knocked on the managing editor’s office and she opened the door wearing her dojo whites, sweaty from practicing tae kwon do kicks. Nobody messes with Marilyn, and not just because she has a black belt. Mad handed her the letter and repaired to the corner to do combinations on the punching bag that was still swinging from the ceiling. She read the page in under five seconds. “Motherfuck.”

  Mad kept hitting the bag. “My” [pow] “words” [pow] “exactly.”

  “Oh, crap.” She picked up the phone. I flopped down on her office couch and she threw a cappuccino-flavored PowerBar at me. “Chief Hill, please. Marilyn Zapinsky from the Monitor. It’s important.” He came on the line right away. Impressive. “Chief, you might want to send one of your boys over here. There’s something you ought to see. It’s a letter purporting to be from the killer. Might be a crock, but I figured we’d play it safe. What? No, I haven’t made any decisions about printing it yet… Whoa. It came to my newsroom, mister. If I want to run the goddamn thing I’ll run it. I called you up in the spirit of cooperation. Huh? Evidence, schmevidence. I can photocopy this sucker faster than you can zip up your fly.” She listened again. “Why, that’s much nicer. Tell him to come right up to my office. And good day to you, sir.”

  She hung up and I bowed my head. “Mistress Marilyn, I kneel in adoration of your power.”

  “It’s all in the attitude, sister.”

  “That man would pay big money to have you walk on his back with spike heels.”

  “He can’t afford me.”

  “So who’s he sending?”

  “Your hero, Detective Cody.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  “And a prints guy.”

  “What for?”

  “They’re dusting us for elimination prints. Apparently we should have known better than to handle the letter. We’ve probably smeared it all to hell and destroyed their evidence. But they’re going to check it anyway.”

  “Why do I doubt the killer would do us the favor of running his mitts all over the thing?”

  “Because you have common sense. But these guys are cops, and we have to make allowances. Now be a good girl and go xerox this thing before the stormtroopers get here. Five copies should do the trick. No,” she called after me, “make that ten.”

  8

  WE DIDN’T RUN THE LETTER THE NEXT DAY. A WEEK WENT by, then another, and the copies still sat in a heap on Marilyn’s desk. It wasn’t that she was knuckling under to the cops—she’d “sooner chop off a tit,” as she so eloquently put it—but because she had her own kind of qualms. Our fearless leader has never been one to do things by committee, but this time she decided to keep us informed. She’d read the letter a hundred times, and it bugged her too. Yes, it was properly twisted, but it was all too general; there were no details, nothing in there that some wacko couldn’t have written just by reading the paper. And, she told us, she was damned if her newspaper was going to turn into a playpen for every sicko with a typewriter. “Except,” she added, “you guys.”

  Then the next one came. It was addressed to me, which did not enhance my personal calm. I’d gotten a number of threatening letters the year before when we were investigating Adam’s murder, and although this one came to the paper rather than my house it brought back nasty memories. I told myself he’d probably picked my name because at that point I was the only female reporter under sixty-five working on the city desk. Or maybe because I’d found the second body. Or maybe because he liked my movie column. I’m still not sure which was the least comforting.

  The second letter was as neat as the first, and as soon as I realized what it was I didn’t touch it with my fingers. I nudged it the rest of the way out of the envelope with the eraser end of a pencil, just like the cops do on Law & Order, and laid it flat on my desk.

  You are weak so you do not understand. I have sent you my words and you will bring them to the world. You cannot eclipse my destiny. I will take lives when and how and as I see fit. I will act in the darkness and though they may struggle in the end they will yield.

  Read my words carefully or you will pay the price. I have the power over life and death. The world has seen me use my power and I will use it again soon. The master in his dark force can show mercy. But only if those who serve him do obey.

  You will hear my words with fear and humility. These words must be put forth for all the people to read. If they are not put into print one week hence I will act. I will take another life and another and another. You have no power and you must obey.

  My next sacrifice may be any one of the weak.

  It may be you.

  “Yo, Alex, whatcha reading?”

  In the midst of the love letter from Charles Manson, Mad’s big baritone scared the bejeezus out of me. I jumped up and knocked over my can of Diet Pepsi, which proceeded to coat everything on the desk in a fizzy brown pool. “Mad, oh, shit. Help! Go get some paper towels or napkins or something.” I picked up the letter by the corner. It was so wet it was translucent, and a little fountain of soda dripped from it onto the desk. Mad came back with a wad of white cotton and started swabbing. “Careful, you’re ripping stuff. What the hell are you using?”

  “The men’s room was out of paper towels. Ditto the ladies’. I found these under the counter.”

  I picked up one of the sopping rectangles from the desk. Even under the circumstances, I had to crack up. “Mad, these are Kotex.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sanitary napkins. The kind you use with pins and a belt. Like from 1960.”

  “Oh, Christ,” he said, and dropped the wet wad into the garbage. “There are some things a man wasn’t meant to know.”

  I finished cleaning up the mess while he stood around looking scared somebody was going to lop off his member. I threw away a stack of mushy press releases I should have tossed months ago and inspected the letter I’d laid on Junior’s old desk. It was still in one piece and legible, but the fingerprint situation wasn’t promising. I had no idea what I was going to say to Marilyn, much less Detective Cody. I crawled into her office and confessed, and an hour later we were sequestered there with the cops.

  “You people are unbelievable.” This from Chief Hill. And I thought he liked me.

  “I’m sorry,” I squeaked out, wishing Mad hadn’t left me to take the heat alone. “It was an accident.”

  “Accident, my keister. If you worked for me you’d get the sack.”

  “You still have the contents of the letter,” Marilyn said. “The only thing you’ve lost is any fingerprints that might have been on there, and you know damn well there weren’t any.”

  “We have no way of knowing…”

  “Come on, Chief, did you find any prints on that first letter besides ours?” He didn’t say anything. “I didn’t think so.”

  “If you’ll permit me, Chief, I think we have something more serious to talk about,” Cody said from the corner of the room, where he’d been watching the two bicker with what I could have sworn was the hint of a grin. “This second letter is obviously a threat. I think we have no choice but to consider it in that light.”

  “Go on,” Marilyn said.

  “Let me ask you an honest question, and I’ll expect an honest answer. We all know you could have run that first letter. Why didn’t you?”

  Marilyn stared at him with that assessing look of hers. I bet it was the same one she used on Oliver North when she was covering Iran-Contra for the AP. “Damn thing didn’t sit right.”

  “Why not? No offense, but you’ve run more with less.”

  “I damn well do take offense. Despite what you seem to think, Detective, we aren’t in this business just to sell papers. There’s such a thing called journalistic ethics. And we have no obligation to give
equal time to all crackpots.”

  “And you think your letter writer is a crackpot?”

  “I’ve done my research. I know which papers went for this kind of thing and why. And even if this is the real thing, I have no intention of dragging my newspaper through another Son of Sam catastrophe.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Christ Jesus,” the chief said. “What does the Son of Sam have to do with this?”

  “Nothing,” Marilyn said, with a wistful look at her punching bag. “But maybe everything, damn it all.”

  The chief was starting to look annoyed. “I can skip the mystery. Just tell me what you’re up to.”

  “The Son of Sam,” Cody said. “David Berkowitz. Originally known as the 44-caliber Killer, for his gun.”

  “I can also skip the history lesson,” the chief said. “What’s your point?”

  Marilyn picked the Thurmon Munson baseball off her desk and rolled it around in her hands as she spoke. It had taken me a while to realize that her collection of sports memorabilia didn’t include anyone who made it to a normal life span. “Toward the end of the Son of Sam case, Berkowitz sent a letter to Jimmy Breslin at the Daily News. You gotta remember what it was like down there back in ‘77. New York was paralyzed, and it’s a pretty tough town. This was before local TV news amounted to much, no Internet or CNN, and the papers were falling all over each other covering the story. Cops wanted the city to see they were working their asses off looking for the guy, so they let reporters swarm all over the place. We’re talking cameras in the squad room.”