The Boston Strangler Page #4

where you were in each instance.

Send it to me at the statehouse.

You know that Miss Ridgeway

is a rejected lover?

I don't, frankly.

We were lovers. I broke it off.

She is a woman scorned.

Apparently, things aren't as upside down

as they seem.

I'm sorry to disappoint you.

She played the man's part, I the woman.

- [FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]

- [DOOR CLOSES]

There was nothing I could say,

so I didn't say anything.

- See you after the credit-union meeting.

- BOBBIE:
No, you get some sleep.

As a matter of fact, we both should.

- I'll see you tomorrow night at the plant.

- Okay.

- BOBBIE:
Good night.

- LLOYD:
Good night, sweet.

[DOORBELL BUZZES]

Now, Lloyd, I told...

[SCREAMING]

[BRAKES SCREECHING]

BOTTOMLY:
Hello, Luis.

Has your attorney explained to you that

you don't have to answer our questions?

I don't mind answering

intelligent questions.

- What were you doing with this?

- Saving it.

Anyone who strangles a woman

can't be all bad.

Stop it, David.

- And this?

- I'm sick, you know.

More likely drunk. How much have you had?

That's what they teach in the academy:

Catch them off guard

with irrelevant questions.

DINATALE:
Where did you buy this?

Also irrelevant.

Immaterial and incompetent.

What are you made up for, David? You

wouldn't be playing Othello, would you?

Bravo. Intellectual civil servant.

I am Othello.

Othello strangled his wife

because she was unfaithful to him.

Mine wouldn't have had time. We were

only married yesterday morning.

Then you would've had time for number

eight. She was killed in the afternoon.

Ah. Marry in the morning,

murder in the afternoon.

Of course. Sheer omnipotence.

You've been looking at my case history.

They say I have...

...mess... Mess... Messianic delusion.

- Do you think you have?

- Leave the matter of your sanity...

...to the doctors, David.

Are you prepared to charge him?

They're prepared to go on

in hope that I'm gonna spill something.

Don't you know desperate men

when you see them?

Jack?

- We'll hold him.

- For having a newspaper clipping on me?

Oh, don't be ridiculous.

For carrying a concealed weapon.

Also, assault and battery on your wife.

My wife won't charge me.

You want to bet?

BOTTOMLY:
Ready for you, Mrs. Parker.

[YELLING AND SCREAMING]

Police brutality.

We don't do that anymore.

I'm sorry.

[KNOCKING]

- Who is it?

- BRUMLEY:
It's me, Col. Brumley.

Oh, hi.

Well, um...

You're even prettier than I remember

from that party, Dana.

It's funny,

I can't seem to remember that party...

...but I do remember you.

Give me your coat.

There are so many parties

on Beacon Hill, aren't there?

It's just like one big sorority house,

isn't it?

Just like a big sorority house.

Will you have a drink, colonel?

Call me Lyonel. And Coca-Cola, please.

It's malaria, you know, from the Pacific.

It's doctor's orders.

Most of the doctors I know are

half-gassed by 5:00.

You have a lot of physician friends?

You're kidding.

Didn't I tell you I was a nurse?

I don't think so.

I'm attracted to nurses. They...

...have a nice sense of, um...

...reality.

My, you are a trim one.

What's that?

That's a gun, colonel.

You see, I'm a policewoman too.

Julian!

This is Lt. Soshnick and Sgt. McAfee.

In that case, I would like the drink.

So this is the famous Col. Brumley, huh?

My, my, my,

what a time we've had finding you.

Do you think he looks like a colonel?

I am not really a colonel, you know.

Wholesale groceries, isn't it?

Well, he doesn't look like a colonel...

...but he sure doesn't look like

a pickle salesman either.

Produce.

Lyonel, do you know that

impersonating an officer is a crime?

- Not if you don't wear the uniform.

- He may be right.

How do you find them?

Um, in the phone directory.

Or, uh, if they're pretty, like Dana,

I follow them home.

How long has this been going on?

About, um, six months.

One of the ladies says

you have a little black book.

Oh.

You have been a busy little beaver,

haven't you?

Gainsborough Street, Park Drive, Salem.

Mention any one of the neighborhoods,

he's been there.

How many names have you got in here?

About 500.

How many have you scored with?

At least two-thirds.

- In six months?!

- Uh-huh.

You have any idea why you do this?

Just sort of a hobby.

You know what gets me...

...is here is a city with the women in it

supposedly terrified of the Strangler...

...and this pickle salesman,

a total stranger...

...talks his way into their beds

without any trouble at all.

I wouldn't say that.

- He could've killed any of them.

- Maybe he did.

- I couldn't kill anything.

- We'll check you out.

Check him out, hell.

Find out what kind of diet he's on...

...and have it mimeographed

for the rest of us.

It's done. Better wake June up.

MARY:
June?

June?

[SIREN WAILS]

Mr. Bottomly, would you like to make

a statement now?

No, I'm sorry. No comment.

Mr. Bottomly, this is the ninth victim.

Your office must have something to say.

- The same m.o.?

- WILLIS:
The same.

My God, you'd think after eight of them

they'd stop opening the door.

June Williams, 19.

What do we tell the press?

We ought to tell them the way it is.

Horrify them

into keeping their doors closed.

I don't want the press to find out

about the broom business.

The only one who will know, outside

of us, has to be the Strangler.

He won't be in for a few minutes.

We've got time for a sandwich.

Yeah.

I've got to tell you,

I thought you were kidding about this.

I haven't found anything to kid about

since I left eminent domain.

But what the hell is ESP?

Extrasensory perception.

Seeing and hearing things that

have happened without being there.

Sort of like a delayed mental telepathy.

I don't believe

in ordinary mental telepathy.

Science takes it seriously.

I've checked Hurkos.

He's helped police around the world,

from Miami to Scotland Yard.

There are facts.

Coincidences. They could have got the

same thing by opening a fortune cookie.

We've got nine dead women...

...and every suspect and every clue

that 2600 police have come up with...

...has exploded in our faces.

Where's the money coming from?

The commonwealth can't be

springing for this.

BOTTOMLY:
No, a rich friend

of the attorney general's paying Hurkos.

DINATALE:
Rich and eccentric.

Look, I'd read the entrails of a crow

on the statehouse steps...

...if I thought we'd come up with

one lousy little clue.

This Mr. Chiari

has a cottage in Rockport...

...and Bobbie Eden was in Rockport

the night before she was killed.

- Does any of that check out?

- Absolutely.

Listen to the rest of it:

"I prayed for a sign that I was right

in accusing Mr. Chiari...

...and last night it came.

I woke up, and a blue ball of fire

was flying through my room...

...writing the name Chiari

on the ceiling."

Anything else?

This came in yesterday

from a Catholic nursing school.

They got it from a Eugene T. O'Rourke.

"My reason for writing

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