The Battle of Jericho Read online

  Aaron looked at Jericho steadily. His mother exploded with rage.

  “You’ve got some nerve,” she shouted. “How dare you wise off with these officers? Maybe you know your rights but let me clue you, mister. Either you answer them or you’re totally grounded — no TV, no cell phone, no computer, and no more playing those stupid video games you’re obsessed with.”

  “Aw, Ma!”

  “…And no bicycle.”

  Aaron moaned. The bike was his pride and joy. “No-o-o! That’s Dad’s Fuji racer. It’s all I got left since he died.”

  Tears ran down Aaron’s face. He was suddenly a scared little boy.

  “Deal with it,” his mother said.

  “How…how’m I supposed to get to school?”

  “Walk.”

  “Ma…Ma…” he said, crying. “It’s…three miles.”

  “Answer the detective.”

  Aaron sighed heavily. For a few moments his mind raced.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, sniffling. “But could you please take off these handcuffs? They hurt.”

  Jericho nodded and Maria unlocked his cuffs.

  “What do you want to know?” Aaron said, rubbing his wrists.

  “Did you write these letters?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Aaron hesitated for a moment. “I’ll tell you. But can I ask you a question first?”

  Jericho looked at him quizzically. “What is it?”

  “I always wore gloves when I sent those letters,” Aaron said. “How could you find a print? I was real careful.”

  “Criminals always make mistakes. As a detective, that’s what I count on.”

  “So what was my mistake?”

  Jericho thought for a moment. “My guess is you put the gloves on after you pulled the third letter out of the printer. That’s why we found a partial.”

  “Shit!”

  “All right, Aaron,” Jericho said. “Now tell me why you wrote those letters.”

  “…For fun.”

  “For fun?”

  “Yeah. I was goofin’ around. Well, the first one was just sayin’ you better solve this thing. The second one was kinda tryin’ to be helpful. I mean, telling you to Google that psycho foot fetish killer.”

  “What about the third letter?” Jericho asked. “Did you plant that sneaker with the shoetree in it on the beach?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just for laughs. Look, I know it was wrong. I apologize.”

  “Where did you get that sneaker?”

  Aaron hesitated for a moment. He looked ashamed and fearful.

  “I…I took it from my mom.”

  His mother was appalled. “You stole from me?”

  “I’m sorry, Ma. I guess I really screwed up.”

  “Aaron, you’re really gonna get it!”

  “Mrs. Platt,” Jericho said. “You can deal with him later. We’re trying to get all the facts.

  “All right, Aaron,” he said. “I want you to be honest. Are you responsible for the death of those two women?”

  “Two? There are two? I only know about one.”

  “C’mon, Aaron.”

  “I know about the foot with the Nike ’cause I read about it in the newspaper. And I know about my mother’s Reebok because I put it there. Is there another foot? I mean a real foot?”

  “You know damn well there is.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Did you kill these women? Tell me the truth.”

  “No.”

  “Aaron, you know I can arrest you,” Jericho said. “I can lock you up on a charge of Obstruction of Justice. That swastika business last year makes you a two-time offender. The judge will set a bond too high for you to pay. You’ll be remanded to Juvie while awaiting trial. For months you’ll be in there with gangbangers, street-level crack dealers, and teenage nutcases with a history of violence. It is not pleasant place.”

  Aaron took a deep breath and was suddenly calm. “What exactly is this Obstruction of Justice?”

  “It’s a felony — impeding the police in the course of an investigation.”

  “But what am I impeding?” Aaron asked. “Putting my mom’s sneaker on the beach might be dumb, but it didn’t impede anything. And the letters? Well, the letters are just asking the police to investigate. Nothing criminal there. And I answered all your questions in an honest and forthright manner. So frankly, Detective — I really don’t see any Obstruction.”

  Jericho stared at Aaron. This kid was brilliant. He had made the exact case a skilled criminal lawyer would make, which would almost certainly result in his release.

  He had played Jericho to a stalemate — for now. Arrest or not, he’d get no more answers from Aaron.

  He got up and spoke to Maria. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

  He turned to Mrs. Platt. “I trust you’ll deal with your son in your own way. Aaron, I’ll be talking to you again…soon.”

  “How did you catch the kid?” Jericho asked, when they were seated in the police car.

  “I saw him running into the woods,” she said. “So I chased him down.”

  “How’d you make him come back with you?”

  “Police brutality,” she said, grinning.

  “I didn’t know you were that tough.”

  “I am when I have to be.” Maria stopped grinning. He could see she meant it.

  Maria started the car and they drove back to Police Headquarters.

  CHAPTER 22

  Back at the station house, Jericho brought Maria to his office to help him write down the details of their encounter with Aaron Platt.

  She noticed a picture of a young girl holding a teddy bear on his desk. She wondered who she was, but felt asking would be too personal. A daughter, she guessed. Or maybe a niece.

  When they completed the report they went to the Chief and had him read it.

  “Well,” Krauss said, after he finished. “I’d say the kid was lying. I’d say he’s our killer.”

  Jericho said nothing.

  “What’s your opinion, Detective?”

  “Well, first let me say — Aaron Platt has a cunning, ingenious mind — he’s not like any sixteen-year-old I’ve ever questioned. First he threw constitutional law at me to avoid answering. Then, under pressure from his mother, he denied killing anyone and gave perfectly reasonable responses to everything I asked. He actually seemed to relish my questions, as if it were a game. And yet…at times he acted like a frightened little boy. He wasn’t intimidated at all by me, yet he was totally cowed by his mother. To me — his manipulative responses, veiled hostility, sudden switches in behavior — indicate a deep pathological disorder. I think Aaron Platt is dangerous and unstable. It’s possible he’s capable of murder, but did he kill these women? Hard to say.”

  “Hard to say?” Krauss said. “We know the kid wrote those letters. And all the letters mentioned murder — how would he know that? He tried to run away when you came to question him. He taunted us with that sneaker on the beach. Your report noted physical signs of meth use, which everybody knows can lead to violence. You said it yourself, he’s capable of murder.”

  “I said it’s possible. But teenage serial killers are pretty uncommon. There’ve only been about twenty in the last hundred years.”

  “That doesn’t eliminate the kid,” Krauss said.

  “Okay,” Jericho said. “Let’s assume for a moment he committed these murders. The first victim’s foot was found on a Montauk beach, twenty-five miles from here. That’s a long way…”

  “Didn’t you say he had a bike?” Krauss said. “Or he could’ve sneaked off with his mother’s car.”

  “But why would he travel all that distance to find someone to kill? Or if he killed the first victim here, why would he go all the way to Montauk to plant her foot on the beach?”

  “Murderers don’t always behave rationally,” Krauss said. “Especially mentally unstable ones.”

&nb
sp; “Also, what motive does he have — for either of these killings?”

  “Do you know the website Murderpedia?”

  “No.”

  “My wife found it for me on the Google,” Krauss said. “It tells all about murderers, and motives for murder. Like thrill killing — these kids Leopold and Loeb committed murder out of boredom. Or Mark David Chapman, killing to become famous. Or Jeffrey Dahmer, killing out of perverted sexual…”

  “That has nothing to do with…”

  “How ’bout split-personality killing, like Joel Rifkin? He said his evil self told him go murder seventeen females. You said the kid has two sides to him. Maybe one side is a killer…”

  “What you’re talking about is now called DID — dissociative identity disorder,” Jericho said. “But just because Aaron sometimes behaves like a child doesn’t mean he’s got DID.”

  “You’re not a psychiatrist…”

  “No. I’m a detective,” Jericho said. “And my job is to reserve judgment till I get all the facts. So far we have no evidence, no motives, no bodies…”

  “You want a fact? The kid is dangerous!” Krauss shouted. “At this point you can’t say for sure he’s innocent. Can you? Can you? Can you?”

  “Of course I can’t.”

  “So why the hell didn’t you bring him in?”

  “He won’t come in voluntarily and we don’t have enough evidence to arrest him.”

  Krauss scowled. “Then I have to take precautions,” he said. “I’ll put him under surveillance twenty-four/seven. It’s not in my budget but I’ll find the money somewhere.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be useful,” Jericho said.

  “If we don’t watch the kid, we’ll be held responsible if he strikes again. I’ll be held responsible — for not taking action.”

  “Sid,” Jericho said. “You don’t have officers who are experienced in surveillance. If they sit in a car watching Aaron’s house, or follow him wherever he goes, he’s gonna spot them. And he’s smart enough to give ’em the slip.”

  “Excuse me, Chief,” Maria said. “I agree with Detective Jericho.”

  “Salazar,” Krauss said sharply, “last time I looked you didn’t have a gold shield. I suggest…”

  “Once Aaron knows he’s being watched,” Jericho said, “it’ll become another game for him. He’ll play cat-and-mouse with the surveillance team. And tailing him might backfire. If he takes it as a challenge, who knows what he’ll do?”

  “Listen,” Krauss said. “If he knows he’s being watched, he’ll be much less likely to kill again. Better safe than sorry. And it’s a lot better than doing nothing.”

  “We’re not doing nothing!” Jericho shot back. “We’re working these cases as hard as we can.”

  “I’m gonna surveil the kid twenty-four/seven for a week,” Krauss said firmly. “That’s all the overtime I can afford. I suggest you solve these murders in the next seven days, or…or you can be replaced as department head.”

  “By who — Inspector Clouseau?” Jericho asked.

  “Who?”

  “Fred McCoy.”

  The Chief said nothing.

  Jericho turned to Maria. “Let’s go, Salazar. We’re on the clock.”

  When they left the Chief’s office, Jericho suggested they have a bite to eat. “Rowdy Hall?” Jericho said.

  “Okay,” Maria said. “Actually, I am jonesing for a cheeseburger.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Rowdy Hall is an English pub–style restaurant located down an alley off East Hampton’s Main Street. It’s so named because in the 1870s it was the site of a boardinghouse for young artists. Next to it was the First Presbyterian Church. The early Sunday morning worshippers would pass the boardinghouse and were offended by the dissolute bohemians, still drunk from the night before and carousing loudly. Thus they called it the rowdy hall.

  Arriving at the restaurant, Maria excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. When she returned, she’d let down her hair.

  “Hey,” Jericho said, “I didn’t know your hair was that long.”

  “It sure feels good,” she said, tossing her head. “After being trapped under a cop hat all day.”

  Maria ordered a cheeseburger. Jericho was trying to lower his cholesterol, but he was enticed by the menu’s statement, “You Know You Want it!” and caved. Maria scanned the extensive beer menu and selected an Erdinger Dunkel. Jericho opted for ginger ale with no ice.

  “No brewskie for you?” Maria asked.

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Oh…I see.”

  “I had a problem,” Jericho explained. “That’s one of the reasons I left the NYPD.”

  She waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

  “Where were you assigned?” she asked.

  “Midtown North — East Harlem.”

  “That’s a tough precinct — gangs and drugs and all. Pretty stressful, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you came out here?”

  “My wife left me and married a…more stable guy. They moved out to Montauk and brought my daughter with them.”

  “Oh. That must be the picture of her I saw on your desk.”

  “Yes. Katie. She’s six years old. I moved out here to be near her.”

  “How often do you see her?”

  “Problem is, now I don’t get much of a chance. They moved again, this time to Tacoma, Washington.”

  “That’s awful.”

  Jericho’s face expressed his deep sense of loss. “I really miss her,” he said. “Without her I just…” He broke off.

  She reached out and pressed his hand. Jericho knew it was out of compassion, but it almost felt like a caress. He looked into her lovely, chocolate brown eyes and wanted to say please keep doing that.

  The cheeseburgers arrived.

  “Medium rare?” asked the waiter.

  Maria raised her hand.

  As the server put down the plates, Maria looked closely at Jericho’s face. It was more sensitive than she’d noticed before. His eyes were sapphire blue, still watering slightly from his emotions. His jawline was firm, and he had a head of full sandy hair, reminding her of JFK.

  Then it hit her — Jericho is an attractive man. At the same time, she also knew she’d been repressing that fact, telling herself — we have to work together.

  She immediately focused her mind back on their work. “Oh,” she said. “I wanted to tell you; the other day, when I went home, I interviewed Mrs. Ramírez again. I asked her if she had any of her daughter’s clothes, figuring maybe I could find a DNA sample we could use if we ever needed to ID Teresa. She said last year she gave all her daughter’s stuff to the church, to be given to the needy in the community. She wanted to keep it, but when she moved to the mattress house, there was no room in her cramped space. All she had left, she said, was some of her daughter’s baby hair, which she kept in a locket around her neck.

  “I asked if I could have it, explaining, like you did to Richman, that it was ‘standard operating procedure in a missing persons case’ for ID purposes.

  “She gave it to me with tears in her eyes, saying, ‘Please be careful. This is all I have to remember her by.’”

  “Where’s the locket now?”

  “In an evidence bag, locked in my desk. Oh, and I checked the hair inside. A couple of strands have follicles, so it’ll be useful.”

  “Where’d you learn that? The Academy?”

  “No. CSI: Miami.”

  Jericho laughed. “That’s great, Maria,” he said. “Sadly, it’ll only help if we find a body. Give it to me tomorrow and I’ll get it to the ME.”

  Maria sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Two investigations going on at the same time can really fry your brain.”

  “Listen,” Jericho said. “Why don’t we give it a rest? Let’s talk about…well, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

  “Well, I’m a Whaler,” Maria said. She explained the word referred to people who were bo
rn and raised in Sag Harbor, which used to be a whaling town.

  “I live with my folks,” she said. “It’s not ideal, but hey, you know what rents are out here. Anyway, it’s fine for now. I save money and my parents are good people, they never bust my chops.”

  “Any siblings?”

  “Just my younger sister, Carla,” she said. “She married a guy who joined the Air Force. He was deployed to Bulgaria — a NATO air base called Bezmer.”

  She hesitated before going on. “She…hasn’t been home in three years.”

  “Doesn’t he get any leave?”

  “They prefer traveling around Europe. I…I dunno.”

  “You must miss her.”

  “Terribly.”

  Jericho nodded in sympathy. After a moment, he spoke. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “No. You have a girlfriend?”

  “It’s not so easy in my line of work.”

  “Same here.”

  The rest of their conversation was relaxed and good-natured. They talked sports — he was a tight end in high school football, she was a mid-fielder in high school soccer. They discussed the economy and politics but that brought them down, so they moved on to weather, reality TV, and the effect of technology on how people think and communicate.

  After dinner, they drove back to the Wainscott Police Headquarters so Maria could get her own car.

  Jericho parked in the lot. With the engine still running, they sat there in the semidarkness. The words stopped coming. Jericho turned to face her. Maria was looking straight ahead, as though eye contact might be dangerous. For a moment he admired her elegant profile, the way her black hair cascaded to her shoulders, and how womanly she looked even in her shapeless blue cop’s jacket.

  He flicked up the car’s turn signal lever. It began to click…click…click…click…

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Signaling a right turn — which is probably wrong.”

  She reached over and turned it off. “But in hot pursuit,” she whispered, “a cop is allowed to drive the wrong way on a one-way street.”

  Her hand slid up the back of his neck and made little scratches, as their lips came together. Their kiss was warm and liquid; tongues searching, exploring, slowly at first, then more surely. Suddenly they were pouring themselves into each other, holding back nothing, igniting a flash fire of desire. Maria’s arms tightened around him and she pressed her soft body into his.