The Battle of Jericho Read online

  Jericho came in, bringing Maria with him.

  “Salazar,” Krauss said, “we don’t need you. There’s no translation required here.”

  “There might be weird fonts, Sid. Remember, she scoped out the first letter.”

  The Chief pursed his lips and said nothing. Jericho and Maria watched as he started to open the envelope.

  “Hold it!” Jericho shouted. “Don’t get your prints on the letter!”

  Krauss stopped, looking chagrined. He turned to Maria. “Get us some gloves, willya, hon.”

  She winced, then left and returned quickly with a box of latex gloves. Krauss pulled on a pair and nodded a thank-you.

  The Chief opened the envelope, read the letter, and sighed. He showed it to Jericho:

  Thє kíllєr ís plαчíng fσσtsíєs wíth чσu. Bεττεɾ ṡτøρ hïṃ вεƒøɾε hε ḋøεṡ ïτ αģαïṉ. Whατ’ṡ ÿøυɾ ṉεχτ ṡτερ? hínt: Gøøģlε Jεɾɾÿ Bɾυḋøṡ.

  Krauss went to Google on his PC and typed in Jerry Brudos. Jericho and Maria looked over his shoulder. Wikipedia described a serial killer with a foot fetish:

  “Between 1968 and 1969 women in and around the Portland area began to disappear. In January 1968, Linda Slawson, 19, working as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, happened to knock on Brudos’ door. He later confessed to killing her, then cutting off her foot to use as a model for his collection of stolen shoes.”

  For a while they all were silent. Finally, Jericho spoke up. “Okay, let’s see where we are. The writer threatens to do it again. He’s challenging us, saying he’s got some grisly foot fetish and that we’ll never catch him.”

  “And there’s something else,” Krauss said. “We got a 911 call this morning while you were in Sag Harbor, saying there was another foot found on Wiborg Beach. I went out there with McCoy, and it turned out not to be a foot.”

  “What?”

  “It was only a Reebok sneaker with a shoe tree in it. McCoy took pictures — they’re on his desk if you want to see them. And the sneaker’s in the property room.”

  Jericho was infuriated that Krauss and McCoy had jumped into the case without him. But he couldn’t argue about the timing, so he took it calmly.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now we have a running shoe with no foot in it. This is making less and less sense.”

  “But it’s looking more and more like we’re dealing with a serial killer,” Krauss said. “The letters show he’s extremely devious and clever. Referring us to this guy Jerry Brudos means he’s studied serial killers, and knows varying his methods will keep us guessing.”

  Jericho snapped on a pair of gloves and picked up the letter. “I’m gonna bring this in to Anderson and let him check for prints.”

  “You think the sender would be foolish enough to leave his prints?” Krauss said.

  “We can’t be sure,” Jericho said. “Criminals eventually make mistakes. They get cocky, then they get sloppy.”

  He brought the letter to Sean Anderson and left it with him. Sean said he’d check it right away. Then Jericho went to the Detective Squad Room. McCoy was at his desk.

  “Fred,” Jericho said, “let me see the pictures you got this morning.”

  “Sure,” McCoy said. “I got a macro lens on my new Nikon, so I got some cool close-ups. I printed them out, and as you can see, they’re pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

  Jericho looked the pictures over. “Yeah, they’re good. But they got no sole.”

  “Soul?”

  “You didn’t shoot the sole of the sneaker, which could be significant — possible footprints.”

  “Oh, sorry. I’ll do it now.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Jericho went to the property room and checked out the new “foot.” He photographed the bottom of the Reebok, with its characteristic pentagonal waffle-like pattern. He dusted the sneaker and shoetree for prints. There were none at all. Obviously they’d been wiped clean, or whoever put them there wore gloves.

  As he finished, Sean Anderson came in and gave him an identical report. There were no fingerprints on the Jerry Brudos letter.

  When Anderson left, Jericho sat there staring at the Reebok running shoe. He couldn’t get one thought out of his mind: Foot fetish!

  CHAPTER 18

  Jericho went to the muster room and found Maria at her desk. She was checking the EHTPD missing persons files on her computer, looking to see if any other Latina girls had been reported missing. So far she’d found nothing.

  “Detective,” she said when she saw Jericho. “I’d like to interview Teresa Ramírez’s mother again. Maybe I can learn something new.”

  “Okay. But first I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “I need you to go over to the Amagansett hair salon, y’know, where Ann Richman had her hair and nails done? Talk to the employees and see what you can find out about Mrs. Richman.”

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  “Nah. A woman alone is a better fit for a hair salon.”

  “Good point.”

  Maria started to leave then stopped. “Any DNA results on Mrs. Richman?”

  “Not yet. I sent the pedicure file over, but it takes a while. Anyway, until we hear otherwise, we’ll assume foot number two belongs to Ann Richman.”

  Maria entered the Belle Hair Salon at Amagansett Square. The salon is in a group of one-story buildings surrounding a small park with graceful elm and chestnut trees. There is a boutique, flower market, remainder shoe store, and musical instrument shop. It is the closest thing to a shopping mall in the area.

  Maria spoke to the receptionist. She went in the back and came out with a gray-haired woman wearing a gray smock. She said her name was Sonya. From her accent, Maria guessed she was either Russian or Polish. She had a peculiar habit of sometimes going “M-m-m, m-m-m” when she spoke.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do hair of Mrs. Richman every Tuesday, m-m-m, m-m-m. This week she miss appointment. She okay?”

  “As far as I know,” Maria replied. “I’d just like to ask a few questions about her.”

  “Why? She in trouble?”

  “No. This is just routine.”

  “If she not in trouble, m-m-m, m-m-m, why questions?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, but I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  “Is routine?”

  “Yes.”

  Sonya shrugged. “Okay. I cooperate.”

  “What is Mrs. Richman like?”

  “Nice lady. Not so nice tipper.”

  “How did she seem the last time you saw her?”

  “Fine. Like always.”

  “Does she seem happily married?”

  “Happily? Yes, seems happily.”

  “Did she talk about her husband?

  “No. M-m-m, m-m-m. Only talk about exercising, talk about dieting. If you ask me, she too thin already. Wait a minute — one time she talk about husband. I tell her she should have streaks instead of all blond. All blond too bright for older woman. She say husband not like. I say it’s not up to husband, up to her. I say I do just a little, husband not even notice. Even if he did, what he gonna do about it? She start shaking, get mad, say not my business. M-m-m, m-m-m, I drop subject.”

  “So you think she was afraid of her husband?”

  “I told you, I drop subject.”

  “But in your opinion?”

  Sonya hesitated before answering. Then she said nervously, “M-m-m, m-m-m. She love her husband very much.”

  She pursed her lips before speaking again. “I cooperate. Now I have client. You will excuse me now, please? Thank you.” Sonya smiled, turned, and went into the back.

  Maria returned to Headquarters, sat down at her computer, and wrote out an account of what she’d learned at the salon. Then she went to Jericho’s office and handed it to him.

  “I think you’ll find this interesting,” she said.

  He thumbed through the report. “Four pages. This is pretty detailed.”
/>   “That’s where the devil is, right?”

  “Officer Salazar,” Jericho said with mock formality, “I like the way you work.”

  She looked at him and saw he meant it.

  “Likewise,” she said.

  Their eyes met. There was a brief warm connection between them.

  “I’m gonna try and talk with Mrs. Ramírez again, on my way back home to Sag Harbor.”

  “Go for it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The following afternoon Jericho was in Krauss’s office when Curtis the mailman came in again.

  “Curtis,” Krauss said. “Whassup?”

  “Delivery.”

  “How come so late?”

  “Two of our sorting clerks are out with the flu, so us delivery folks had to pitch in all morning. Tell you the truth, it was a pain in the ass. But I found another one of those letters with the weird handwriting.”

  “When was it mailed?” Jericho asked.

  Curtis looked at the envelope. “Lemme see…it’s postmarked 6:05PM yesterday.”

  He started to hand it to Krauss.

  “Hold it,” Jericho said loudly. “Just lay it down on the desk. It’s got your fingerprints on it, and other postal workers’ too, so let’s not clutter it up any more. Okay?”

  “Fingerprints,” Curtis said. “Wow-ee. Sounds very Forensic Files!”

  “Thanks, Curtis,” the Chief said. “We’ll take it from here.”

  When the mailman left, Jericho took out his handkerchief and used it to pick up the envelope. Then he used his pocket-knife to slice open the envelope. They read the letter together:

  øṉε, τώø,

  αṉ εṃρtÿ ṡhøε.

  τhɾεε, ƒøυɾ.

  ïṡ hε ģøṉṉα ќïll ṃøɾε?

  ƒïṿε ṡïχ,

  hε’ṡ ρlαÿïṉģ ṡïсќ τɾïсќṡ

  ṡεṿεṉ εïģhτ

  вεττεɾ сατсh hïṃ вεƒøɾε ïτ’ṡ τøø lατε!

  Jericho brought the letter to Sean Anderson. Sean put on his protective gear — chemical-resistant lab coat, nitrile gloves, goggles, and breathing mask. Then the technician went into a back room where he could safely use the toxic ninhydrin spray under a fume hood.

  Twenty minutes later he emerged grinning. On the edge of the letter he’d found a partial print of high image quality.

  Jericho watched as Sean entered the partial into the FBI’s AFIS, which did an automatic search and comparison. It took about thirty seconds for the search result to appear on his computer screen.

  The print matched that of an East Hampton resident, who last year had been arrested and convicted of Felony Criminal Mischief. His name was Aaron Platt.

  CHAPTER 20

  The terrified woman ran screaming through the woods. Brambles tore at her skin and she stumbled over a thick vine that seemed to reach out and trip her. Aaron ran after her, laughing, in dogged pursuit, his axe raised over his head. The woman fell, lurched to her feet again, and dashed through the forest, zigzagging in frantic attempts to evade her pursuer. Aaron was closing fast. The woman screamed between ragged breaths. The moment was almost here. Aaron knew he’d get her. He swung the axe high above him and hurled it, blade over handle, toward his victim. The axe head struck her cleanly between her shoulder blades and a fountain of blood spurted out of her body. Aaron yelled in triumph as the woman collapsed to the forest floor, bright red blood pooling around her.

  A stentorian voice rang out: “Nice going, Soldier. She’s history! You have three hundred million seven thousand Kill Points on Axe Kill. The maximum is one billion Kill Points.”

  “I’ll get there,” Aaron said. He turned off the Xbox — Kataclysmic Kombat (KK for short) was his favorite game.

  Jericho and Maria parked their squad car outside of Aaron Platt’s house. Maria started opening the door, but Jericho put his hand on her forearm. “This kid is tricky,” he said to her. “I interviewed him a year ago on a spray-painting incident at the high school. I asked him why he painted swastikas and he said the swastika was a Navajo good luck symbol. I said that may be so, but you know damn well it’ll be taken as a Nazi image. He started screaming, calling me a pig and a retard. Then he burst into tears. The kid’s complicated and messed up. I don’t want to spook him with too much police presence.”

  Maria felt disappointed but said she understood.

  She leaned back in her seat as the detective walked toward the front door.

  Aaron was cleaning his Xbox. He was always careful to keep his precious device in tip-top condition. It was starting to run hot because of dust collecting in the vents, which blocked the hot air from getting out.

  He was carefully spraying the vents with compressed air from a can of 3M Dust Remover when his mother barged into his room.

  “Aaron,” she said. “There’s a cop downstairs who wants to talk to you.”

  “A cop?” he said, with panic in his voice. “What does he want?”

  “Something about letters you wrote to the police. Aaron, are you in trouble again?”

  “Naw, Ma. Tell him…tell him I’ll be right down. I just hafta pee.”

  She nodded and left.

  Shit, he thought. I never should’ve written those letters! Now what do I do? Gotta think fast.

  A plan quickly formed in his mind. He called Richie Chang on his cell.

  “Richie, it’s me. I’m in trouble. Meet me at the shack right away. Bring money, as much as you can. I gotta leave town.”

  He went to the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, opened a One A Day multi-vitamin bottle, and popped two of the meth pills he had stashed there.

  He opened his bedroom window, climbed through, and grabbed onto the drainpipe. He’d shinnied down it many times over the past few years, whenever he wanted to sneak out of the house.

  When he hit the ground he ran into the woods behind the backyard, heading for the shack, an abandoned maintenance shed near the East Hampton railroad station.

  Hearing a noise at the side of the house, Maria looked over and saw a teenager dropping from the drainpipe and running into the woods. She jumped out of the car and dashed across the yard, racing after the fugitive.

  It was getting dark, but Aaron maneuvered quickly through the forest, dodging the trees and tangled underbrush. He’d explored these woods since he was a child and knew them well.

  Aaron heard noises behind him and knew he was being followed. It felt like he was back in his video game, only now he was the pursued. He thought, You’ll never catch me, motherfucker!

  Maria struggled and stumbled as she ran through the overgrown forest. There was still a little daylight but not much. Pine branches scratched at her face and exposed roots tripped her as she chased after Aaron.

  He glanced back. A woman’s voice called out, “Police officer! Freeze!”

  Aaron sped up, breathing heavily from exertion and fear. With meth-fueled speed he was gaining distance. He broke out into a clearing about fifty feet wide. He had to get across it.

  As Aaron was making his dash, Maria came out of the woods behind him. This was her chance. She sprinted across the clearing and tackled Aaron just above his ankles. He tripped forward and fell onto the ground. Maria jumped on top of him, grabbed his left arm, and wrenched it behind him in a hammerlock. He struggled, screaming in pain.

  “Hold still, Aaron,” Maria said calmly. “We just want to talk to you. Either you can come in peacefully or I can book you for unlawful flight and resisting arrest. What’s it gonna be?” She increased the pressure on her hammerlock.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come in. Just fucking let go my arm.”

  She released his arm and helped him to his feet. “Hands behind your back.” He complied and she cuffed him.

  “Let’s go.”

  She pushed him ahead of her, and Aaron led her back through the woods.

  Her phone rang. She heard Jericho’s agitated voice saying that Aaron had fled. “Yeah, I know,” she told him. “
I chased down the little shit. I’m bringing him back to the house. See you in a few minutes.”

  CHAPTER 21

  By the time he was brought back to his home, Aaron had formulated a plan: Cops are re-tards. No way they can outsmart me. I’ve watched enough Law & Order: Criminal Intents and SVUs to know my way around the legal system. Bring it on, fuzz!

  When Maria brought him into the living room, Aaron saw a man on the couch. He recognized him as the detective who busted him over the spray-painting incident.

  In an armchair sat his mother, glaring at him.

  “Aaron,” she said. “Have you lost your mind?”

  The detective interrupted. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Platt, let me handle this.”

  “Why is my son in handcuffs?”

  “He tried to flee,” Maria said.

  Jericho spoke to Aaron. “Please sit down. As you may recall, I’m Detective Jericho of EHTPD. This is Officer Salazar — I imagine you haven’t been formally introduced.”

  Aaron sat down next to his mother.

  Jericho looked at him and instantly saw the signs of meth use — glassy eyes and dilated pupils.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Jericho said. “Okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  Jericho took out photocopies of the three anonymous letters. “Do you recognize these letters?”

  “I respectfully decline to answer.”

  “Did you send them?”

  No reply.

  Jericho pressed on. “Your fingerprint is on the third letter. How do you explain that?”

  “I…I respectfully decline to answer.”

  “Look, Aaron, would you like us to take you down to the station house?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t have to answer. I know my rights. If you question me, I don’t have to answer. Even if you find some reason to arrest me, you have to Mirandize me and I don’t have to answer. Even if you got an indictment and brought me to trial, the Fifth Amendment says I don’t have to answer. Any questions?”