Love Kills by Dan Greenburg

Author:Dan Greenburg [Greenburg, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime
Amazon: B00DYWOUIE
Goodreads: 20622060
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 1978-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 44

BLACK CHRISTMAS

BY JOHNNY MONAHAN

At one end of the gloomy sitting room in the musty apartment at 275 W. 96th St. in Manhattan, an old lady sits in an overstuffed chair and weeps.

At the opposite end of the room, under a brave little Christmas tree trimmed with red and green lights and silvery tinsel and fake snow, lies a gaily wrapped package. The card on the package is addressed to Pamela, but Pamela Marlin will never read that card, never open that gaily wrapped package, never be able to share Christmas this year or any other year with the old lady in the overstuffed chair.

Pamela Marlin is dead. Her slim, blond, 21-year-old body was found along with that of a coworker in the office where they worked by the cleaning woman. The bodies—half naked, lashed to a desk with ropes—had been choked to death sometime during the night by an unknown assailant.

The old lady in the overstuffed chair has no more idea of who might have wanted to do such things to her youngest daughter than do the cops, and the cops have no idea at all.

“Pammy was such a good girl,” the old woman says for maybe the dozenth time since you entered the apartment on West Ninety-sixth Street. “Why would anybody do such a thing to her?”

You have no answer for the aging mother of Pamela Marlin, nor do you have answers for the mother of Frieda Winston, the coworker whose body was found with Pamela’s, nor for the mothers of Virginia Manteuffel or Beverly Rachlin or Linda Lowry, either. They, too, as any child who reads the headlines or looks at television is well aware, lost their lives within the past few days, probably to the same man, and God only knows how many more will follow these unfortunate women to the city morgue in days to come.

The animal who slaughtered these women is still at large, lurking in the shadows and stalking his prey like a hyena. What motivates such a beast? What combination of lust and rage against your fellow beings does it take to make you into someone who forces women into intimate acts that should only be shared in the marriage bed and then deprives them of their lives? Can you build a hate that big all by yourself? Or do you need the help of a raw, brutalizing city where your spirit is raped so frequently and your dreams murdered so consistently that the very acts have become a commonplace?

“Whoever killed my Pammy,” the old lady murmurs, “they’re going to pay a terrible price.”

They will indeed, you think. They will indeed.

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