From a writer’s perspective, fiction allows a writer to create Lester Beach, the scariest character in Killer in the Holy City from several real criminals enhanced by the writer’s imagination. We’re not bound by the chains of non-fiction. What I mean by that is when we write true crime or historical pieces, we are compelled to stay within the bounds of what is exactly true and accurate. There is no wriggle room in non-fiction; everything that is written must be accurate and all the facts, especially quotes must be correctly cited and attributed. A writer cannot label a suspect a “murderer” unless he or she was convicted in a court of law of that crime. If we say that a trial took place on a certain date and was conducted by “Judge Brown,” then we have to be sure those events actually took place where and when we said they did.
In Killer in the Holy City, Marilyn Bardsley and I, thankfully, were not bound by those restrictions and allowed our imaginations to run free for a change. After many years of writing only non-fiction and true crime, there was a sense of freedom in our writing that we had rarely experienced before. The characters in the Holy City were inevitably drawn from our own experiences and knowledge of the true crime genre and real encounters with individuals in our long journey through the frequently terrifying reality of violent crime. Lester Beach, the “loose cannon” of the Holy City and his enigmatic role in the serial murders depicted in the story, is one such character.
Beach was a composite of several criminals who I had the misfortune to cross paths during a twenty-nine-year career in law enforcement in New York. One of those was, in fact, a killer who had murdered a family member and during interviews expressed the kind of arrogance and self-confidence we see in Beach, especially during his very first encounter with Dr. Danie Callahan and Det. Joe Asher at the Somerville Hospital. The Bible quotations were actually the habit of another suspect whom I had dealings with for a different unrelated crime but it seemed to fit Beach, and his unsettling demeanor, rather well. The real-life killer, like Beach, had an answer for everything and was confrontational during his interrogation, repeatedly challenging us for all the evidence we had against him, which of course, I refused to provide. He was a very uncooperative person (the guilty usually are) to interview and often changed the subject every few seconds which made it difficult for detectives to stay on track. He had a nasty habit of chewing on his fingernails, spitting out the pieces as he spoke. The dialogue between Danie and Lester Beach is very similar to what actually took place in real life, though it did not help the killer much. He was later convicted at trial and received a long prison sentence for a particularly brutal murder. As it turned out, the sentence was not long enough, though. Some years later, while walking through headquarters, I caught a glimpse of this killer, who resembled Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs film, sitting in an office talking to another officer. When I inquired, I learned he had been paroled and was back on the streets! Hard to believe, but just one of the many incredible things that happen in the ever-frustrating and illogical world of criminal justice.
Did you think Lester Beach was a scary individual?