Killing the Boogeyman

This novel is written as autofiction, a blend of fiction and autobiography in which the author, Richard Chizmar, serves as both narrator and protagonist. A sequel to Chasing the Boogeyman and Becoming the Boogeyman, the narrative presents itself as a true crime account of events set in July 2022 in and around Chizmar's real hometown of Edgewood, Maryland.

On the morning of July 3, 2022, convicted serial killer Joshua Gallagher, known as "the Boogeyman," vanishes from Cumberland Penitentiary in western Maryland. Gallagher, 57, was sentenced to life without parole in 2019 for the 1988 murders of four young women from Edgewood. Rich Chizmar, Gallagher's childhood friend turned bestselling biographer, learns of the escape from Lieutenant Clara McClernan of the Maryland State Police. State troopers descend on the Chizmar home in Bel Air, where Rich lives with his wife Kara and their adult sons, Billy and Noah.

McClernan and her partner, Detective Anthony Gonzalez, show Rich prison security footage in which Gallagher finishes breakfast, walks into a corridor, and simply disappears from the cameras. A prison guard named Elgin Matthews also vanished that morning, entering a restroom and never emerging. Rich reveals that during recent visits, Gallagher left cryptic symbols on his cell walls and an incomplete hangman puzzle Rich believes spells "IT'S TIME." Gallagher also spoke of physically and spiritually "changing," a claim supported by medical records documenting that he grew two inches taller during incarceration, gained muscle, and apparently underwent a change in blood type from O negative to AB positive, a medical impossibility his doctors cannot explain.

Rich's credibility is compromised by past behavior. He arranged unauthorized phone calls with Gallagher through a prison guard named Sharon Ridgely, driven by personal obsession. Only weeks earlier, a trio of copycat killers orchestrated by Gallagher from prison attacked Rich's family, and Kara killed one of the intruders in self-defense. Gonzalez reminds Rich that he has lied to police before. Major Hughes, McClernan's superior in the Maryland State Police, pressures Rich into reading a public statement at a press conference, using the threat of exposing his unauthorized dealings as leverage.

Shortly after, devastating news arrives: Matthews's body has been found strangled, propped against a tree in the front yard of Gallagher's childhood home in Edgewood. That evening, Rich discovers seven pine cones arranged in a row on his diving board. During the 1988 murders, Gallagher left numerical clues in ascending order with each victim, the last being six pumpkins. Seven pine cones signal that Matthews is victim number seven.

Media coverage explodes. Sightings pour in from across the country. Rich and Kara grow alarmed that their close friend and fellow writer, Carly Albright, has been unreachable. When Carly finally calls, she claims she spent the day hiking with an old male friend, but the call is oddly brief, and she asks almost no questions about Gallagher's escape. Rich grows more suspicious when Kenny Penrod, a retired homicide detective Carly claimed to have seen on the river, confirms he was at a campground in Pennsylvania. McClernan orders a welfare check on Carly's D.C. townhouse, but Carly is not there.

On July 4, 18-year-old Tiffany Roberts disappears while walking through woods near Cedar Drive in Edgewood. Her friend turns around to find only a spilled Slurpee cup on the trail. Rich then receives a call from Carly's phone, but the voice belongs to an unknown man who delivers an ultimatum: If Rich meets Gallagher face-to-face, Carly will be released. If Rich tells police, the deal is off.

The situation worsens when the caller texts Rich a video of Carly bound and bruised, along with photographs of Kara taken from within the Chizmars' own backyard, proving that one of the assigned troopers is working for Gallagher. The meeting place is identified only as "the apple orchard," and Rich must arrive at 10 p.m. without his phone.

Rich decides he must go. He writes notes for Kara and McClernan, then enlists his lifelong friend Brian Anderson as a getaway driver. That evening, he leaves his phone behind, sets the garage treadmill running as a decoy, and escapes through the backyard under cover of fireworks.

Brian drives Rich to the Meyers House, a locally famous Victorian mansion in downtown Edgewood. Rich deduces this is the meeting place because he and Carly previously visited the property while following one of Gallagher's in-prison scavenger-hunt clues, and because the property's handyman, Larkin Wood, whistled a tune Rich had also heard Gallagher hum. In the apple orchard behind the house, Gallagher appears, looking younger and stronger, with darker hair and skin that seems to shimmer. Two men bring Carly out, gagged and shackled but alive. Gallagher demands a "favor" before releasing her and, when Rich protests, has Carly taken back inside and strangles one of his own followers to death in front of Rich.

Gallagher hands Rich a burlap mask, his signature disguise, and says they are going hunting. They walk through Edgewood as Gallagher narrates how he would stalk a woman alone in her kitchen. Rich is horrified to realize he put the mask back on without consciously choosing to. Members of the Angel's Brigade, a community crime-prevention group, spot them and give chase, but Gallagher and Rich escape with what feels like supernatural speed.

Gallagher leads Rich to a house belonging to one of his followers. In an upstairs bedroom, Tiffany Roberts lies tied to the bedposts, drugged and barely conscious, covered in bite marks. Gallagher hands Rich a hunting knife and reflects on their bond, recounting how as children they swung in rhythm on a playground and how he felt an "electric shock" at Rich's touch, an obsessive connection he has harbored ever since.

Gallagher then presents three choices: watch him kill Tiffany and Carly goes free; kill Tiffany himself and Carly goes free; or use the knife to stop Gallagher. Rich refuses to choose. When the countdown expires, Gallagher lunges at Tiffany and begins strangling her. Rich slashes Gallagher's forearm, then buries the knife at the base of his neck. The impact sends Gallagher crashing through the second-story window.

Rich frees Tiffany. Downstairs, the homeowner attacks with a hammer, but Brian, who followed Rich on foot all night, knocks the man unconscious. Outside, Gallagher's body is gone. They walk to the Meyers House, now swarming with police, where Carly is escorted out, battered but alive. Back home, Kara finds Rich's note and contacts McClernan, whose team traces Brian's phone and dispatches officers. Kara arrives at the scene, and she and Rich embrace amid flashing cameras.

In an epilogue set nearly two weeks later, Gallagher remains at large. Tiffany is healing, and Carly is writing about her ordeal. Multiple followers have been arrested, and the dirty trooper is identified as a man who believed he was selling photos to a tabloid reporter, not a Gallagher disciple. Rich continues therapy. Disturbing details emerge: Doorbell cameras that should show Rich and Gallagher walking together instead show Rich alone or beside a blurred, heat-mirage-like shape. Brian tells Rich he watched Gallagher fade in and out of visibility during the night. Rich lies awake wondering what Gallagher is becoming, recalling that his son Billy traced Gallagher's birth origins to a Russian orphanage where nuns warned that the child, fathered by a man "returned from the stars," needed special blessings to cleanse his soul. The novel closes with Rich contemplating his own reflection, leaving unresolved the question of how deeply Gallagher's darkness has touched him.