I Would Find a Girl Walking by Diana Montané, Kathy Kelly Read Free Book Online

signed the affidavit charging Gerald Eugene Stano with aggravated assault in the stabbing of Donna Marie Hensley.
    From there, he headed back across town to the restaurant where Stano worked as a short-order cook. It was April Fools’ Day 1980.
    Gadberry eased his unmarked police car into the parking lot, looking for the red Gremlin to make sure Stano was working. Sure enough, there it was, the red car with black stripes on the side, chrome luggage rack, and a trailer hitch on the rear bumper.
    Inside, the detective made his way into the kitchen. He was alone, but he didn’t expect any trouble. His trouser leg brushed against the gun and holster he wore on the inside of his ankle just in case there was.
    In the kitchen, huge pressure cookers made a sizzling noise as they steamed with frying chicken, the little family-owned eatery’s specialty.
    Behind the counter stood Gerald Stano, wearing a white apron to keep the chicken blood and flour coating from splattering all over his trousers. “Are you Gerald Stano?” Gadberry asked.
    “Yes I am,” Stano stated, trying to sound matter-of-fact as he tried to figure out the stranger’s identity.
    “I have a warrant for your arrest for aggravated assault,” Gadberry said, before reciting Stano’s Miranda rights, advising his suspect he had the right to remain silent and consult with an attorney.
    “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the cuffed, pudgy guy muttered, glancing around the room to meet the stares of his fellow workers as they paused from their jobs to take in what was happening. “I don’t even know that broad.”
    “The courts will decide that,” Gadberry said, motioning Stano to accompany him outside. Using his portable police radio, Gadberry summoned a marked patrol car with a cage unit, since the car he was driving had no facilities for holding prisoners. After all, Stano was charged with a felony; no sense in taking any chances.
    As Stano was led outside, other employees stopped to watch, curious about what was happening with the quiet, moody cook, a relative newcomer to the staff.
    Back at the police station, Sergeant Paul Crow sat in his tiny cubicle of an office with no windows, not knowing that the troubled young man he would soon meet would change his own life as much as he would alter the course of Stano’s future.
    For six weeks, Crow had been doggedly working a murder case. On February 17, 1980, he had been called in on his day off to view the body of a young woman found stabbed to death off Bellevue Avenue. Her killer had been brutal and exact, covering her body with branches after carefully placing the corpse on the ground.
    She, too, had been stabbed in the thigh, just like Donna, the prostitute.
    “He’s really starting to look good for this,” Crow thought to himself. The sergeant was anxious to talk to Stano, but he was careful not to appear too eager. A compulsively neat person himself, he glanced around his small quarters, absentmindedly straightening a few papers and flicking away small particles of dust.
    This may very well have been Crow’s first common ground with Stano, who shared the detective’s fastidiousness for neatness. It would also become the killer’s downfall.

FOUR
    The Pretty Star Swimmer
    Before being taken to the jail, I took Paul to where I put a body behind the airport. Little did I know, that was the beginning of the end of me. All during this, Paul was like a person I could talk to, and confide in. I didn’t look at him like a policeman. I saw him as a real person, who cared what happened to me.
    —Gerald Stano to Kathy Kelly, November 3, 1985
     
     
     
     
    A s Sergeant Paul Crow waited for Detective Jim Gadberry to bring Gerald Stano in, he thought back to the murder that had taken up much of his time since the body had been found, on February 17, 1980. Mary Carol Maher, twenty, had been missing since January 27, 1980. Her mother had dropped her off at the Holiday Inn Boardwalk on North