The Craigslist Murders (24 page)
Read The Craigslist Murders Online
Authors: Brenda Cullerton
Then her eyes drifted back towards the window and she spoke, almost wistfully. “You can’t imagine how it feels, Mother. It’s like soaring,
flying
, that moment when the poker hits flesh. I’m so alive, so connected to these women. Even my pores feel as if they’re absorbing their life force. I’m releasing them, you see? That’s what they don’t understand. They should be grateful to me.”
Seeing her mother’s scrawny fingers fumbling towards the call button, Charlotte just smiled.
“I made a mistake, this time. I left a woman alive. The papers call her a
victim
. But she isn’t a victim, Mother. She’s a predator. Just like all the other women I’ve released from their misery. Women, like you, who know the price of
everything but the cost of nothing. You and all your exquisite beautiful things,” Charlotte whispered. “Everything you touch is precious. But you live in emotional squalor. Are you listening, Mother?”
Her mother was watching Charlotte’s every move with one good eye and fidgeting around with her fingers.
“Just the thought of you living in such pain gives me pleasure, Mother. Because you don’t deserve to die. Letting you live is a perfect punishment.”
Hearing a discreet tap on the door, Charlotte turned around, and gave the nurse her most radiant smile.
“Oh nurse. I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “My mother can’t seem to stop crying.”
“Don’t worry about it too much,” the nurse replied. “Stroke victims often cry.”
“Oh! What a relief, nurse. I’ve been sitting here talking about my favorite childhood memories, hoping they might cheer her up.”
“Has she been angry, too?” the nurse asked, patting Charlotte’s mother on the hand. “Anger is also very common after strokes.”
Charlotte gave her mother a saintly smile. “My mother’s never angry, nurse. That’s what makes her so easy to love,” she said, giving her a kiss on the forehead.
“I have to leave now, unfortunately. But I’ll be back up, tomorrow, Mother,” Charlotte said, giving her a sympathetic nod and strolling towards the door.
“We’ll take very good care of her tonight, I promise,” the nurse said, straightening out the tangle of sheets.
Thanking her for her patience, Charlotte calmly walked out into the corridor and sighed. She would go home, pack
a bag, and take a train somewhere. Anywhere. She needed time to plan her next move. As the elevator doors whooshed close, the nurse scurried down the corridor. “Miss! Your coat! You forgot your coat!”
Christ, she was uncomfortable. The metal springs in the cab seat were poking through the leather. She could barely sit still. Fiddling with her seatbelt, she leaned forward and ordered the driver to get off the West Side Highway. It was cold out. And she’d forgotten her goddamn coat. Christ! And her cell phone. How could there be so much traffic at this hour? These people were supposed to be leaving, not coming into town. The driver was praying or something. They just sat there, going nowhere.
Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to sing. The notes stuck like dry cotton in her throat. The horns, the stopping and starting, were driving her crazy. Glancing at her watch as the cab snaked its way past a bus on 34
th
Street and turned down 9
th
Avenue, she wondered if police had circulated the sketch of the attacker. And what about the calls from Philip? He knew. She was sure he knew. But had he called the cops?
Looking impatiently out the window, Charlotte unbuckled her belt and told the driver to stop. He’d turned off 9
th
Avenue and made it down to 7
th
and Carmine Street. The Holland Tunnel was slowing them down again. She’d power walk the rest of the way.
The accident happened so fast, she had no time to react.
She heard the shriek of horns before the thud. Her head crashed up against the partition and she blacked out. When she opened her eyes, her vision was fuzzy, smeared like a windshield pelted by rain. Rubbing her eyes, she saw the blue cloth of his uniform first.
“Miss, miss,” he said, sticking his head through the passenger window. “Are you alright? Can you hear me?” Deliberately pushing her hair in front of her face, she nodded.
“I’m fine, officer. A little shook up but fine.”
“An ambulance is on the way. Just sit tight.”
Feeling gingerly around beneath her hair with her fingertips, she winced. The bump was enormous. It was bleeding. She could hear the shrill whine of an ambulance in the distance. She had to move, quickly. The cabbies were screeching at one another in Urdu when the punching started and the cop edged his way towards the curb. Charlotte slid slowly across the seat. If she could only get out of the cab, the crowd would swallow her. She could disappear. Her stomach was churning. Just as she pulled the door handle, the cop turned around and stared at her. He squinted. She gave him a weak smile and waved. When he turned his back on her, Charlotte calmly opened the door and walked into the crowd.
“Hey, lady, where are you going?” some guy yelled. “You’re hurt!”
Keeping her head down, Charlotte moved at a funereal pace. The impulse to run was almost irresistible. Tensed and waiting for that sickening lurch when the cop would grab her shoulder and stop her, she started to hum.
Sticking close to the side of buildings, she walked along Carmine Street and took a right on Downing. The cop and
cabbies were now out of sight. Shivering, she broke into a jog. Fifteen minutes later, Charlotte was so hot, she’d pulled off her sweater and tied it around her waist. Taking a fast right, she hurried down North Moore towards the safety of home.
John was heading straight for her.
God! Not now, John! Not now!
she muttered as he blocked her way. “I’m in a rush, John. I’ll give you something, later, I promise,” she said, pushing to get past him.
“Charlotte! Charlotte!” He whispered. “Police. Police!”
She stopped, nailed to the spot, as he shuffled around on his feet, his eyes flitting up and down the block.
“Calm down, John,” she said, soothingly. “What do you mean, police?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know. They’re in your building. They’re after me.”
Charlotte forced herself to breathe. “How long have they been there, John?”
He was rifling through his shopping bag.
“How many of them?” Charlotte asked, gently resting her hand on his arm.
“A few, Charlotte. A few …”
“Well, I’m sure they’re not after you. But I’ll talk to them, okay? I’ll tell them we’re friends.
He nodded.
“Here,” Charlotte said, pulling out a twenty dollar bill. “Buy yourself some cigarettes. It’s going to be okay, I swear.”
“Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks!”
Watching him head towards the Korean market, Charlotte turned around and began to walk towards SoHo. She thought about the fantasies she’d had after seeing Pavel,
about his tattoo of the sailing ship and his talk of freedom. She also thought about how tired she had grown of her tiny, incestuous world in New York. She longed for the terror and the challenge of new beginnings. Thinking of Pavel and his banya, she imagined plunging into a river of cool rushing water. A burst of adrenaline surged through her veins as she stepped up her pace and looked up at a sapphire-blue sky. For the first time in years, Charlotte felt almost light on her feet—untethered. Like one of those big bright-striped hot air balloons that, once freed of the weights and the ropes that lash them to the ground, drift ever so slowly, up and into the air.
CRAIGSLIST MURDERER ELUDES COPS!
By Ben Volpone
In a story that only grows stranger and more complicated over time, police informed the media this morning that they have identified a “person of interest” in the attack on Gina Craven. “We would like to talk with her, ask a few questions, is all,” said the spokesperson. Although sources refused to cite her as a probable suspect, her name is Charlotte Wolfe.
Admired for her interior design work by the wives of the city’s richest, most powerful financial wizards, Ms. Wolfe lives in a downtown Tribeca loft where police were waiting to question her yesterday evening after receiving a call from her Greenwich Village psychiatrist. Unfortunately, Wolfe has yet to show up and police now fear that she may have been warned and left the city.
Reluctant to disclose the exact nature of the
psychiatrist’s concern, sources close to the investigation did reveal that it involved a recorded cell phone conversation and the possibility of bodily assault. “It seems this person accidentally speed-dialed her doctor. And an emergency exception allowed police to enter the premises of the phone registered to the patient in question.” The source also disclosed that it was only after police had entered the premises that a possible connection was made between Wolfe and the Craigslist murders. “A detective on the case recognized several pieces of evidence, including a monogrammed silver spoon, at which point a search warrant was issued. It appears that there is other evidence also links Wolfe to the killings of Amy Webb and Christina Johnson.”
Described by Rita Brickman, a shocked longtime friend and client, as “both lovely and immensely talented,” Wolfe began her career working as an assistant to the celebrated late designer Harold Beamish. When asked to comment on the news about Wolfe, Beamish’s partner, Miles van den Broek, hardly minced words. “We called her the ‘halo from hell,’ ” he said. “Nothing about her would surprise me.”
In an exclusive interview, Philip Daft, a client of Wolfe’s and one of New York’s most respected philanthropists, mentioned that he had actually seen the suspect wearing what is now suspected to be a piece of evidence. “It was a gold charm bracelet,” he said, speaking from the street on his way into the Union Club. “I noticed it right away, because my wife wanted one. I remember Charlotte told me she’d bought it on Craigslist. I was shocked. It’s not the sort of thing you hear from our people.” As he approached the door of the club, Mr. Daft turned around.
“Of course, Charlotte was never really our people.” Follow-up calls to his wife, a close friend of the suspect, were not returned.
The daughter of Millicent Connors and Benjamin Wolfe, Charlotte Wolfe was brought up on in one of New York’s most exclusive Fifth Avenue buildings. She attended the elite Chapin School and Sarah Lawrence College. Police request anyone with information about her whereabouts to contact 1-800-577-TIPS immediately.
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
Entering the trustees’ dining room at the Cincinnati Museum of Art, she was greeted by the sound of muted but heartfelt applause. Lowering her emerald green eyes, she smiled, and gave her husband’s arm a gentle squeeze. Everyone affectionately called her Bet. With her champagne-streaked blonde hair pulled back in a sleek, tight chignon, her statuesque build, sun-kissed skin, and ruby red lips, people said she looked a lot like an older version of Carolyn Bessette. Had she lived, of course. The poor thing.
Yes, the women in town all agreed that she’d had some work done: the forehead, the creases between her nose and mouth, maybe even a discreet lift to the eyes. But it was so subtle, it only added to her allure. This was just one of the extraordinary things about Bet. Women envied her, but they also loved being near her. Every charity event in town that she sponsored was wildly oversubscribed. And no one ever
turned down an invitation to one of her marvelous dinners at home or a weekend in the country.
The other extraordinary thing about Bet was her marriage to George. George’s mother had been a gorgon—an absolute harridan. When Bet arrived in town out of nowhere, with no credentials to speak of, no background, no real money, everyone at the club had given her relationship with George a month, two at the most. After all, they’d witnessed the social demise of so many other younger, wealthier, more suitable women.
But Bet had not only succeeded in defanging George’s mother, she’d befriended her, too. In fact, Bet’s friends were convinced that it was her tireless nursing and infinite patience before the old woman’s unexpected but merciful demise that cinched the couple’s marriage. She and George had been virtually inseparable ever since.
Last but far from least, was Bet’s style. You could forgive a woman almost anything, including a somewhat dubious past, when she had style like Bet. It wasn’t just the way she dressed or what she’d done with the house. It was how modest and generous she was with other women. Everybody had called her in at one point or another for advice. Whether it involved a decision as mundane as choosing a color for the new maid’s room or as important as decorating a nursery for the baby, or buying some hugely expensive piece of French furniture at auction, Bet just
knew
.
What was it she had given all the girls at Christmas? Fabulous eighteen-karat gold straight pins in velvet boxes? “So you can tell the fake from the real thing,” she’d said in her notes, after thanking them for making her feel at home in Cincinnati.
The party at the museum had gone on till two a.m. After making love to his wife, George fell asleep. She had waited until she heard the sound of his snoring before creeping into her dressing room and locking the door behind her. She was exhausted, wrung out. Eight hours of vapid, small talk with such boring, tedious women. One more story about an adorable eight-year-old Mozart prodigy and she thought was going to puke. Did they ever talk about anything but their children? Stripping down to her $1,000 Nina Ricci bra and thong, she smoothed the creases out of the Dior dress and carefully hung it up in its proper place.
