The police commissioner’s office looked like it was decorated by a Hollywood set designer — what with the grouping of flags behind a sprawling oak desk, heavy blue curtains, a rich burgundy rug, glass cases filled with Boston Police Department memorabilia, a wall of photographs interspersed with old badges and framed letters of commendation.
I bring this up only because this is where I happened to be sitting a little before noon. Hal Harrison was reclining in a leather swivel chair behind that aforementioned oak desk. Vinny Mongillo sat to my left on the visitor’s side of the desk, and Peter Martin, editor of the Boston Record, was to my right. It’s probably worth noting that I don’t think I had ever seen Martin in public when he wasn’t sitting at a restaurant table and I was paying for the meal. Smart as he is within the confines of the newsroom, a man of the people he is not.
“You think this is some sort of fucking publicity stunt — another ploy to sell your goddamned paper? That’s what you think?”
That was Commissioner Harrison, who had lost all of the confiding charm he had displayed from the podium at his retirement speech the night before. On this day, in the privacy of his office, I’d have to say he was absolutely livid.
So livid that he pounded his fist on the desk, then picked up a pile of papers and tossed them on the floor beside him. His face was beet red, his eyes contorted. Normally a handsome man with silvery hair and a fit frame, he looked like a tired, angry pensioner who had just found out that his Social Security COLA was frozen in the halls of Congress.
Harrison had personally called me the moment I got back to my desk from the Lauren Hutchens murder scene, saying he needed to see me, Mongillo, and preferably the editor of the paper on an urgent matter. I thought he might be prepared to confide information in this investigation. Apparently I thought wrong.
“No sir,” I replied. “We didn’t ask for these letters. We didn’t seek them out. As soon as we received them, we not only alerted your detectives, but we handed over the original copies —”
“As soon as you received them? As soon as you fucking received them?” That was the commissioner again, his voice rising to a whole new level of anger. “When my men arrived at the fucking murder scene this morning, the two of you were already standing outside the fucking door. And you’re saying you called us as soon as you received them.”
He picked up another pile of papers and flung them on the floor. I’ve never quite understood the mentality of executives — or, for that matter, of anybody else — who feel the need to rant and throw objects. But I guess that wasn’t really the point here. The point was that, well, he kind of had a point. We had waited to call, maybe wrongly so.
I said, “I received the note and driver’s license this morning. We called on the way over. We arrived at the victim’s doorway at roughly the same time as the police.”
Harrison stared at me for a long moment, like he didn’t believe what I had just said, his hands first on his cheeks and then sliding absently through his hair. They came to rest on the back of his neck, and he bowed his face in apparent thought. Mongillo and Martin remained quiet on either side of me — or as quiet as can be, in Mongillo’s case. I could hear him breathing out of his nose, the sound like wind gushing through trees.
Finally, Harrison looked up, directed his gaze at me, Mongillo, and then at Martin, and said, “You’re not going to report this.”
We sat there in silence for another moment until I said, “Not report what?”
“This. For starters, those damned letters. And you’re not going to report whatever it is that you saw in the Hutchens apartment this morning.”
Mongillo piped in, “Why not?” He sounded sincerely surprised, taken aback.
Harrison directed his gaze at him and said, “Because you’ll fuck up this entire investigation. You’ve got absolutely no idea what you have. You have no idea the meaning of what you saw. You’ll send this city into mass hysteria, and you’ll get in the way of us trying to do our jobs.”
The three of us sat in collective silence again. This time it was Martin who broke it.
“Commissioner,” he said, respectfully but firmly, “we regard this as a significant story, and are fully aware of the conflicting interests. Should the public know about the possibility of a serial killer? Will our reportage in any way compromise the integrity of the investigation? We’re very prepared to give this some serious thought, keeping in mind at all times that our ultimate responsibility is to our readers.”
I first looked at Martin out of the corner of my eye, and as he spoke, I turned my head fully to watch him. When did he grow a pair of brass balls? Actually, I say that in jest. As aggravating as Peter Martin can be to work for, I’ve never known another newsman who has his ability to reach the right decision for all the right reasons, story after story after story.
Apparently, Harrison wasn’t thinking the same thing. He looked at Martin incredulously and all but yelled, “This isn’t a fucking journalism ethics class, Mr. Martin. This is real life, and in this case, real death. Debate this all you want. Just don’t print it. If you have to, write that a thirty-two-year-old woman named Lauren Hutchens was found dead, and police are investigating the cause.”
“Given what we know, that would be a lie,” Martin said.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know if these notes are a fraud. You can’t even be sure of what you saw today. You caught one quick glimpse through a half-open door. You know nothing.”
Maybe, maybe not. But we knew, like he knew, that these notes weren’t likely a fraud. The first one could have been. The second one led us to a woman’s body. And through that open doorway we saw a crime scene that was pretty damned horrific, and we saw it long enough, well enough, to record in our heads, and later on notepads, the gory details of a young woman’s death.
Harrison bowed his head again. When he spoke, it was in a lower voice, with a calmer tone, as if he was trying to regroup. He said, “Look, there are three potential scenarios that could unfold if you print a half-cocked story. One, whoever sent you these notes will kill again very soon, because he’s obviously seeking publicity. The publicity you give him will fuel a desire for more. Two, antithetically speaking, it could cause the killer to not send you any more notes, stunting an opportunity for additional clues. Three, you may prompt copycat killings in the city, which serial killings often do. In other words, frustrated husbands and boyfriends will off their women under the guise of this Phantom Fiend.”
He added, almost politely now, “Does this make any sense to you?”
Martin, rising now from his chair, said, “It does, Commissioner, it does. But there’s a fourth scenario as well, and that is, if we print the story, we warn people to take proper precautions against a serial killer, and we potentially save lives. Like I said, we’re going to give this some very serious thought. We appreciate your time.”
I reflexively got up right after Martin, mesmerized by his performance. I’d follow this guy into battle, and actually, I think I just had. Mongillo stood after me and completed the procession.
When you’re the commissioner of a major police department, you’re accustomed to giving orders, not merely making requests. You’re used to people doing precisely as you say, not tabling your demands for further consideration. Poor Hal Harrison. I don’t think he knew what had hit him. He was undoubtedly thinking about his mayoral campaign, about a city gripped by fear as the police commissioner tried to make the leap into city hall. What was taking place all around him was not a formula for electoral success.
As the door swung shut behind us, I heard Harrison holler into his phone, “Get me Mac Foley — immediately!” I think I also heard Martin clank a little bit while he walked. The question remained, though: What the hell were we going to do now?