uncontrollable bouts of weeping.
She was released several weeks later, but her life remained dominated by her loss. Often, in her fitful sleep, she would dream of Billy. In the middle of the night, she would awaken her oldest daughter, Irene, to tell her of an especially wonderful dream—of Billy running up the steps, hammering on the door, crying, “Mamma, mamma, let me in!”
On special holidays she always set a place for Billy. “I know he will come back some day,” she told reporters, who visited her apartment at Christmastime in 1930. “There is nothing a mother can do but hope.”
For the rest of her life, Elizabeth Gaffney would never reconcile herself to the loss of her son. Even after the truth came to light, years later, she refused to accept it—an understandable act of denial, given how appalling the truth turned out to be.
3
… horrid king, besmeared with blood of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears. JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
He had always been a man of passion. Now, his lust had become even stronger, a terrible appetite that seemed to grow more ravenous with each new feeding.
In the beginning, he had craved only the pain. It wasn’t until later that the blood-hunger had possessed him. He remembered the first time he had sought to satisfy it. He had cut off a piece of the monkey—just the tip—with a pair of scissors. But the little one had set up such an awful howl, even through the gag, that he had taken pity on it and run away, leaving it bleeding and moaning on the bed.
Afterward, though, he couldn’t get the picture out of his mind—the cropped and bleeding monkey, the agony on the little one’s face. Even now he stiffened at the memory.
Sometimes, he felt overcome with contrition. At such moments, the urge to atone for his sins by butchering one of Christ’s lambs was impossible to resist. A verse floated into his head: “Happy is he that taketh Thy little ones/And dasheth their heads against the stones.”
The latest sacrifice had been the sweetest. It, too, had made pitiful noises—from the moment he had led it from the roof until its final seconds, when its dying bleats truly sounded like those of a bleeding little lamb.
The commandments came more frequently now. He would need another victim soon, another Isaac offered as a sacrifice for his own iniquities, sins, and abominations in the sight of God.
His work had always made it easy for him to find, and snare, his prey. But he was often without work nowadays and had to depend on other tricks. There were many of them, and by now he knew them all.
His hungry eyes never stopped scanning the world for the signs that would lead him to his preordained prey.
He had found them everywhere—on the streets, in the churches, in the houses of the poor and the insane.
A message might arrive at any time, from any place.
It was only a matter of knowing where to look.
4
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Edward Budd was a short but powerful eighteen-year-old, built like a bantamweight. Square-jawed and square-shouldered, he had the cockiness of the young Jimmy Cagney. Even standing still, he seemed tensed for motion, charged with the buzzing energy of the New York City streets.
In this respect, he differed markedly from his parents, who seemed to have been defeated, if not crushed, by the hardness of their life. Albert Budd, a head taller than his son, seemed like a wisp in comparison. A porter for the Equitable Life Assurance Company, he had a hapless air about him and a look of perpetual bewilderment that was partly the result of a flagrantly phony glass eye. By contrast, his wife, Delia, was a mountainously large woman with an underslung jaw that added to her look of stubborn immobility. Seeing the oddly matched pair together, more than one observer was reminded of the old nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife.
Besides Edward, Mr. and Mrs. Budd had four other children: Albert Jr.,
She was released several weeks later, but her life remained dominated by her loss. Often, in her fitful sleep, she would dream of Billy. In the middle of the night, she would awaken her oldest daughter, Irene, to tell her of an especially wonderful dream—of Billy running up the steps, hammering on the door, crying, “Mamma, mamma, let me in!”
On special holidays she always set a place for Billy. “I know he will come back some day,” she told reporters, who visited her apartment at Christmastime in 1930. “There is nothing a mother can do but hope.”
For the rest of her life, Elizabeth Gaffney would never reconcile herself to the loss of her son. Even after the truth came to light, years later, she refused to accept it—an understandable act of denial, given how appalling the truth turned out to be.
3
… horrid king, besmeared with blood of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears. JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
He had always been a man of passion. Now, his lust had become even stronger, a terrible appetite that seemed to grow more ravenous with each new feeding.
In the beginning, he had craved only the pain. It wasn’t until later that the blood-hunger had possessed him. He remembered the first time he had sought to satisfy it. He had cut off a piece of the monkey—just the tip—with a pair of scissors. But the little one had set up such an awful howl, even through the gag, that he had taken pity on it and run away, leaving it bleeding and moaning on the bed.
Afterward, though, he couldn’t get the picture out of his mind—the cropped and bleeding monkey, the agony on the little one’s face. Even now he stiffened at the memory.
Sometimes, he felt overcome with contrition. At such moments, the urge to atone for his sins by butchering one of Christ’s lambs was impossible to resist. A verse floated into his head: “Happy is he that taketh Thy little ones/And dasheth their heads against the stones.”
The latest sacrifice had been the sweetest. It, too, had made pitiful noises—from the moment he had led it from the roof until its final seconds, when its dying bleats truly sounded like those of a bleeding little lamb.
The commandments came more frequently now. He would need another victim soon, another Isaac offered as a sacrifice for his own iniquities, sins, and abominations in the sight of God.
His work had always made it easy for him to find, and snare, his prey. But he was often without work nowadays and had to depend on other tricks. There were many of them, and by now he knew them all.
His hungry eyes never stopped scanning the world for the signs that would lead him to his preordained prey.
He had found them everywhere—on the streets, in the churches, in the houses of the poor and the insane.
A message might arrive at any time, from any place.
It was only a matter of knowing where to look.
4
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Edward Budd was a short but powerful eighteen-year-old, built like a bantamweight. Square-jawed and square-shouldered, he had the cockiness of the young Jimmy Cagney. Even standing still, he seemed tensed for motion, charged with the buzzing energy of the New York City streets.
In this respect, he differed markedly from his parents, who seemed to have been defeated, if not crushed, by the hardness of their life. Albert Budd, a head taller than his son, seemed like a wisp in comparison. A porter for the Equitable Life Assurance Company, he had a hapless air about him and a look of perpetual bewilderment that was partly the result of a flagrantly phony glass eye. By contrast, his wife, Delia, was a mountainously large woman with an underslung jaw that added to her look of stubborn immobility. Seeing the oddly matched pair together, more than one observer was reminded of the old nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife.
Besides Edward, Mr. and Mrs. Budd had four other children: Albert Jr.,
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