Eight in the Box Read Online Free PDF Page B

he could actually enjoy having his own place. The white house with green trim had been painted pink when Connie first saw it. That was probably why he’d gotten it so cheap.
    Walking into the kitchen, he threw his keys on the counter and headed down to the basement. He flopped onto the couch and turned on the television. He could finally relax, knowing that the pager wasn’t going to disturb him. He still had some work to do, but at least he didn’t have to think about the drug case he’d given to Andi. She’d do a great job with it. He didn’t have any worries about that. And he’d seen a new side of her tonight. It had been fun watching her kick Nick’s ass in the parking lot. He’d never dated anyone who handled herself like that.
    It was almost seven o’clock. He had TiVo’d the broadcasts from Boston’s major news stations and now he could watch them at his leisure. Once he got it started, he sat engrossed in the coverage of Susan McCarthy’s disappearance.
    Sgt. Mooney and Angel Alves stood behind the district attorney and the police commissioner at a press conference. The logo of the BPD, a gray badge with its prominent 1854 on a background of deep blue, was fixed above their heads. Face time for the DA and the commissioner. Neither of them said anything significant beyond the fact that McCarthy was missing. They’d done a good job of giving vanilla answers.
    Connie recognized one of the reporters with a reputation for sensational reporting. The man was positioned so his viewers could see his squared jaw and perfectly coiffed white hair as well as his station’s logo on his microphone. “Isn’t it true that Susan McCarthy is dead? That the physical evidence you have is a bathtub full of her blood?” His intense gaze swiveled smoothly from the podium back toward his cameraperson. Before either man could answer, the reporter continued his cross-examination. “Isn’t it also true that there was a similar murder a couple of months ago? And isn’t it true that the police are referring to the assailant as the Blood Bath Killer?”
    The other reporters now began shouting questions. The DA responded to the barrage by saying that both matters were under investigation. His answer seemed like a resounding “yes” to everything. And that quick, the world knew there was a deranged killer prowling the neighborhoods of Boston.
    Channel 7 followed the press conference with file footage of the Boston Strangler murders that had rocked the city between 1962 and 1964. Albert DeSalvo, the Strangler himself, was the city’s most infamous serial killer, so what better time to revisit those crimes? The Strangler preyed on women alone in their homes, getting in by posing as a maintenance or delivery man. He then sexually assaulted his victims, strangled them with their own stockings or bathrobe ties and left them in obscene sexual poses.
    The report segued to coverage of Susan McCarthy’s daughter and distraught ex-husband getting off a plane and being hurried into an unmarked police car. Walter McCarthy’s hair was disheveled; his clothes were wrinkled and the circles under his eyes made him look as though he hadn’t slept in days. The girl looked confused and frightened by the reporters and cameras. She was maybe seven or eight years old and her long blond hair looked like maybe her father had tried to fix it for her. She probably didn’t really understand what had happened to her mother. Maybe she’d been told that her mother was dead, but she was too young to understand what that meant. Her father might have told her something that was easier for a child to comprehend, like that her mother was now an angel in heaven with some previously deceased relative, maybe a grandparent, and that since Mommy was now an angel she would always be with her and watch out for her.
    Connie thought about how this little girl’s world had been instantly altered. This one incident would affect her for the rest of her life, as it