Authors: Oliver Stark
88 Killer (15 page)
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 3.06 p.m.
A
aron Goldenberg opened the door. His eyes were already red. He saw Tom Harper behind Denise Levene. He was just the kind of big, brutal cop that he’d expected. Since Abby had disappeared, Aaron Goldenberg had imagined the moment he was told about her death.
In fact, he rehearsed it every day. He imagined that it was about to happen every time the mailman called, every time the paperboy came by, every time visitors rang the bell; and every time the phone went, he waited for the news that would tear him to pieces. He knew that he would never get up again after he heard; that his body would sink and die. As it should. He’d make it his duty never to allow himself to get up again.
He heard Denise Levene say something. He tried to listen. She repeated it.
‘Sit down, please, Aaron,’ she said.
‘Please tell me. If you have bad news, please be quick.’ Aaron stared up at Denise, imploring her, desperate with fear.
‘I need you to keep calm, Aaron.’ She leaned in and took his arm, sitting with him on the couch. He glanced across to Harper.
‘Is he the one? You’re only a psychologist. It has to be a cop to give the bad news, right?’
‘This is Tom Harper. I told you about him. He’s a very good cop. The best. He said he’d help.’
‘Thank you, Detective Harper. Thank you for helping.’
Harper nodded and stayed quiet.
‘Aaron. You told me when we first met that you made Abby carry pepper spray and a rape alarm,’ Denise said.
‘Yes, for her protection. What else can a father do?’
‘Do you remember the brand of pepper spray?’
‘Brand? No. It was pink. I bought her pink. I thought she would be more likely to carry it.’
‘Detective Harper here thought Abby might have cut through the woods to get to the bus stop.’
‘Why would she try to get to the bus stop?’
‘I’m not saying she was trying to run away, sir, only that she was going somewhere she didn’t want you to know about.’
‘I see.’ Aaron lowered his head.
Denise took his hand. ‘We searched the path. We found a discarded canister of pepper spray. Pink.’
Aaron’s eyes glanced rapidly between the two cops, trying desperately to make sense. He couldn’t. ‘What does it mean? She is dead?’
Harper stepped forward. ‘Sir, we got a clean thumbprint off the lid of the spray. It matches Abby’s.’
The man’s eyes seemed wild with pain and anguish. ‘Is she dead?’
Denise shook her head. ‘We don’t know. But it means that it’s unlikely that she ran away. It looks like she was heading through the woods and somebody came across her.’
‘Was the spray used?’
‘Yes. The whole canister.’
‘She’s a fighter, Abby. She wouldn’t just let someone take her. She would fight.’
Denise and Tom Harper stared on, unable to speak or help the man.
‘We’ve got the woods closed off now. We’re doing a full search,’ said Harper.
Aaron’s lips stared to tremble as dark thoughts clawed through his mind.
‘It doesn’t mean she’s dead, sir.’
‘No? What does it mean?’
‘Keep hoping, Aaron. There’s no saying what will happen,’ said Denise.
Harper pulled out his sketchbook. ‘We found these symbols on a tree near to the entrance to the park. They mean anything to you?’
Aaron took the sketchbook. ‘It’s used by neo-Nazis,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m Jewish, I was brought up in Brooklyn. I’m a Holocaust specialist. Nazi graffiti is a perennial flower.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘Eighth letter of the alphabet.’
‘H?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what does H mean?’
‘It’s double H, as in HH. Which stands for Heil Hitler.’
Harper drew breath. ‘It’s unbelievable. Do they not know what the Nazis did? What they stood for?’
‘I doubt it. Or they find it powerful because they feel weak. Evil has that capacity to captivate those who feel hard done by in life.’
‘Could this symbol be traced to anyone?’
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘It is too common.’ He watched Harper closely. He felt there was something more. He stood up.
‘What is it, Detective? You want to say something.’
‘I want to go public with your daughter’s disappearance. I want to call it a homicide.’
‘But you don’t know that she’s dead!’
‘You have to trust me, Dr Goldenberg. My feeling is that it plays into his or their hands to have Abby labeled a runaway. That way, the cops don’t make these links. If we call it a homicide, he just might have to prove she’s alive.’
‘If she is alive,’ said Aaron.
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 4.49 p.m.
L
afayette sat on the desk. ‘Where you been, Harper?’
‘Collecting symbols.’ He threw down two photographs. ‘We found these 88 symbols at the woods where Abby Goldenberg was taken. So I went back to the Capske crime scene – and guess what? He left an 88 on the corner of the alleyway.’
‘Might not be him.’
‘No, but it’s another link, Captain, between Capske and Abby. We could have a Nazi killer on our hands. An 88 Killer.’
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘I won’t. How did things go at your meeting with the Feds?’
‘They want us to keep them informed.’
‘So they backed off?’
‘They backed off. Your print and link to Lukanov was enough.’
Harper hit the desk. ‘That’s good. Now I need another favor.’
‘What?’
‘Abby Goldenberg. Can you swing it under our jurisdiction on the evidence of these 88 symbols and the Lukanov link?’
‘I think I can pull it off Missing Persons. They don’t want it, but she’s not necessarily dead, is she?’
‘We’re hunting a killer and she’s linked, let it be enough for now.’
‘Okay, Harper, but keep me right up to speed on this.’
Harper agreed and headed down to the investigation room. He met up with Eddie. ‘What you got, Eddie?’
‘We’ve got nothing,’ said Eddie. ‘We cross-referenced homicides with reported hate crime and Jewish identity and we got nothing. Sorry.’
Harper sighed. ‘You go take a break. I’ll give it a go.’
Eddie pushed back from the desk and swung his legs out. ‘Thanks, I need to eat. You want something?’
‘Yeah, anything you can get.’
Eddie left and Harper sat in his seat and looked at Eddie’s searches. He’d tried everything. There were four murders highlighted. Two more drug shootings involving Caucasian victims, one Brooklyn murder and one Brooklyn mugging-homicide. Harper read the details. The two drug shootings belonged to the Bronx. The two white kids had been dealing under the noses of the suppliers. They were punished.
Harper stood up and walked around the precinct investigation room. The killer had killed before, so what were they missing? Maybe he had killed and taken the bodies like he might have done with Abby.
Harper logged in again. He tried to cross-reference missing Jewish girls with the MO. Harper looked down list after list. He felt the thud each time the unimaginable crimes flickered to life on his screen. Faces of the dead, bodies photographed in harsh light from every angle. No crime scene on TV could ever convey the banality, the lack of humanity. But there was no link.
Harper trawled through, going through month after month, not knowing what he was looking for, feeling like he was struggling through the darkest jungle, with predators all around. People shot, stabbed, battered, crushed, raped, torn, slashed. Words mingled in Harper’s mind with the images and he had to bat them all aside to keep the emotion away.
A thought hit him as he went through each murder. What if it wasn’t an unsolved murder? What if someone had been put away for the murder? Miscarriages of justice weren’t all that rare.
Harper realized that they hadn’t searched solved homicides, only cold cases and open cases. He put in his search parameters. Single gunshot wound, Jewish victim, writing on the body. He was seven victims down the search results, when he stopped.
Her name was Esther Haeber. She’d been killed in Brooklyn two months earlier. Esther Haeber, possibly the first victim of the 88 Killer, now resting in the Records Office with someone else paying for the crime. He noted the Investigating Officer and signed off.
East New York
March 9, 5.06 p.m.
S
he’d hidden it well from Harper and the team, but the attack in Brownsville had gotten to Denise, no question about it. Her pulse had hit dangerous levels, she had felt the panic drain her legs, but she hadn’t looked away. She had run through Brooklyn on her own towards her own crime scene. She had been terrified as they blocked her in that alley. She hadn’t panicked, though. She’d fought back and held it together. The session with Mac had helped.
She’d been tough on Tom, but she didn’t want to be a victim, not in her personal or professional life. She wanted to say what she thought and avoid getting herself caught out. Hard as it was to say it, part of the reason Abby was attacked was that she made herself an easy target by straying away from other people. Just as she herself had done.
Now she was back, sitting at the front of Mac’s class, listening intently. Mac stood front and center, his fingers jabbing the air.
‘Okay, people, this is for real. You’ve got to know some techniques so that you can go back to living your lives. These techniques are not here to frighten you or make you into some terminator. But they will save your life and they will prevent you from becoming a victim ever again.
‘In every event, the key is to avoid ever getting into a situation when you are in close contact with another predator, but sometimes it happens and someone has got close to you. Now there are two main problems with your behavior – passivity and non-aggression.
‘These are social aspects of your character. They are appropriate when ordering a pizza or waiting in line at the bank. But when someone grabs hold of you, all bets are immediately off. No more social behavior. You got to dig down under that superego and find the id. Inside you is an animal, so find it. Inside you is the will to live at all costs, find it. And I’m going to teach you how.’
Mac stood and stared at the crowd of women. ‘Levene, stand up.’
Denise stood. She walked towards him.
‘You know I’m stronger than you, right? I look stronger, I can probably hurt you in a few seconds so you also believe I’m stronger – but am I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wrong. It’s not a question of strength but of what you’re willing to lose. If you’re willing to fight to the death, you will fight very differently and you will be stronger. Your attacker will not be willing to fight to the death. Your attacker wants to rob, rape or hurt. He does not want to injure himself. He’s probably got a wife and a mother he has to go home to. You must fight as if every fight is your last. So, you need to be a predator, and the moment your attacker realizes that, you’ll have bought yourself enough time to get away. If we’ve both only got our lives to lose we’re equals. Okay?’
Denise looked around. Seven other women sitting in fear.
‘So let’s try,’ said Mac.
Mac lunged at Denise and held her. They struggled. She tried to nip at him with her teeth, scratch at him, kick him and elbow him. Mac stopped and stood back.
‘If I’m stronger, taking that number of different approaches only strengthens me. Each time your change your strategy, I feel stronger. And none of them actually hurt me.’
‘So what can I do, if you’re stronger?’
‘Intention is what’s terrifying. Find one thing, choose it and go for it. Whatever that is, it doesn’t matter, but if you want to unhinge your opponent or make him think twice, it is the fear of the intention. I want you to choose something. One thing, then to try to get me. Think – he can do what he wants, but I will gouge his eyeball. Or I will bite off a piece of his cheek. And then go for only that one thing. Make it your entire goal.’
‘Okay,’ said Denise.
Mac waited for a second and then lunged. Denise had one thing in mind and that was to bite him. They wrestled hard, but every time Denise had a half-inch of space, she lunged her teeth towards him. The fight went on longer and longer.
Mac finally pushed her away. ‘How did that feel?’
‘Better,’ she said, breathing hard.
‘You have a target, you think less about your pain, your passivity, his strength, or how tired you get. The predator always has a single target. It is what makes him a predator. Even under attack, never play the victim, always play the predator. When you have confused him or frightened him or made him question himself, you’ll have the opportunity to get away. The predator needs to remain intact. Intend specific hurt. He has that in mind, which makes him dangerous. Have that in mind too.’
Denise walked back to her seat and sat down. Her body was still thrilling from the fight, tingling with adrenalin that felt more positive than usual. She suddenly realized why: she was not using it to defend but to attack. She was becoming a predator.
Denise felt the power of the session. Somewhere inside each of their minds, they were beginning to remember those events, those terrible events, but now, they were facing them not with the terror of being unable to defend themselves, but with the questions:
What could I have done? How and when?
Apartment, Lower East Side
March 9, 6.07 p.m.
T
he walk up Essex was unremarkable. It was an ugly stretch of road with a huge municipal parking lot opposite the retail market. The sidewalks were busy with young Asian students and the odd guy with seemingly nothing better to do. Harper crossed Rivington and Stanton and found Detective Jack Carney’s building opposite a bright public-school playground. The kids were all at home and the playground stood empty.
Jack Carney worked Brooklyn Hate Crime and had lived on the Lower East Side for most of his life. The city had changed a great deal since he grew up on the streets of Lower Manhattan, but Jack insisted that there was nowhere else that felt like home.
Harper took out the address, which was scribbled on a small scrap of brown envelope. He looked up at a dirty black building. Under all the grime it was quite an ornate piece of architecture. But the carbon emissions had brought it down to earth.
Tom Harper pressed the buzzer. He had called Jack in advance, to let him know he was coming by. Jack was off shift for two days, but didn’t mind helping out an old colleague. He waited and pressed again. Then he checked the address. After a couple of minutes, a voice came through the speaker.
‘That you, Harper?’
‘This is me, Jack.’
Jack Carney laughed. His voice was deep and filled the tinny speaker until it crackled. They’d never been close, just went through training together, remaining aware of each other, the way two lions are.
‘You know it all comes flooding back. Come on up.’
Harper pushed the door and found his way to a small elevator. He reached the fifth floor and walked down the dark corridor to Jack’s apartment. The door was open.
‘Come right in, buddy.’
Jack Carney and Tom Harper were of similar height, but apart from that they were about as different to look at as you could get. Harper was big, strong in the shoulder and with strong features. Carney was like a dark wiry animal you’d find surviving some terrible arid landscape on scraps. He was hardened Brooklyn stock.
‘Jack.’
‘Tom.’
‘I could’ve met you somewhere.’
‘No need, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. How’s Dr Levene?’
‘She got pretty shaken up by those four thugs.’
‘They don’t play by normal rules,’ said Carney. ‘Been dealing with them for years and they continue to surprise. We’ve got all our ears to the ground down at Hate Crime. Is that where your investigation is heading?’
‘Lukanov is involved. We also got an 88 moniker at the crime scenes of David Capske and Abby Goldenberg. You ever seen that?’
‘Sure, neo-Nazis use it. Means Heil Hitler.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I understand. We’re going to need your help, Jack.’
‘Any way we can.’
Harper looked directly at Jack. He looked good. Still sharp. ‘Shit, you look ten years younger than me.’
Jack’s blue eyes searched Harper’s face. ‘You think? Maybe it’s just because you look like shit.’
‘I got my ass kicked in the ring.’
‘You could handle yourself better than that – what happened?’
‘Shit happened.’
‘I guess. Was he that good?’
Harper smiled. ‘No, he wasn’t. I was that bad.’
‘Now that’s what I’ve been telling people all over. There’s something up with the world. The strong are being ousted by the weak, you know. Who was it, Tom?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone took the focus and fight out of you – who was she?’
‘There wasn’t anyone, just had a bad night.’
Carney smiled. ‘Sure. I’ve had bad nights like that plenty of times. You want a drink?’
‘No, thanks. I want to find out about these fucked-up groups. These neo-Nazis.’
‘They come out of the woodwork. America has lost its confidence, right? An economic ecosystem, just like the dust bowl – you take too much and the whole thing turns to desert. People are losing their livelihoods out there. So they find someone to blame.’
‘You notice it in Hate Crime?’
‘Sure do. The economy goes down, hate crime goes up. Being rich is the only way to fight against racism.’
‘Horrible thought.’
‘The worse things get, the more scary the politics get, the worse it is on the streets. Low-level frustrations tipping over into full-scale turf wars. Poverty and desperation are only half of it.’
‘And the other half?’
‘Politics. The rhetoric from the government, the ruddy-eyed American dream. People on the streets hear it and it creeps into their blood, but it’s nowhere to be found where they live, so they get to think that someone stole it from them.’
‘Understandable.’
‘Leo Lukanov. People like that. They’re told that the Mexicans or the Koreans or the Jews have taken their dream. You need to look carefully at dreams, Tom. Yours too. The dream is always a fake, and the man who sold it to you is long gone, so you need someone to blame.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Someone once told you that you’d be happy, didn’t they? But it went belly up, right? The girl left, the world became gritty and real. It’s called waking up. Hardest thing in the world is waking up.’
‘Waking up isn’t hard, it’s keeping clean once you see how things are.’
‘Damn right,’ said Carney.
Harper looked around the apartment. ‘You push two ends of a piece of metal and at some point, it buckles. That’s all it is. We’re the buckle.’
‘Hey, I like that, Tom. Look at us. Old buddies.’ Jack laughed. ‘Where the hell did it all go wrong? You married, Tom?’ And when Harper shrugged: ‘That’s what I’m talking about. The dream didn’t turn up, did it? I’m living in this tiny room and working my ass off for less than 40K. Happy? When did the pursuit of happiness get so fucking hard, Tom?’
Harper shook his head. He felt it too. It was hard. Life had fragmented – communities blistered and split apart in the heat of poverty and need. Everyone was on their own. There was no community.
‘If I could afford it, you know what I’d do?’ Jack went on.
‘No.’
‘Buy a plot of land and farm the soil.’
Tom laughed. ‘I just can’t see you as a farmer, Jack.’
Jack smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. All dreams are bullshit.’
There was a silence. ‘Enough of that,’ Jack said finally. ‘Let’s talk about your case.’
‘We’re not sure about Lukanov.’
‘You’re not sure it’s him or you think there are others involved?’
‘He attacked Abby and Denise, there’s no question about that, but we’ve got nothing on the Capske shooting. And it seems a different crime altogether. Much more brutal.’
‘Except the barbed wire? That’s a physical link between Lukanov and the crime scene, right?’
‘Not quite. The print was on the post, not the barbed wire. It wouldn’t hold up in court. We’re trying to match up some fibers.’
‘What kind of fibers?’
‘Looks like wool. Left on the barbed wire. Probably from the killer’s coat.’
‘You ransacked Lukanov’s place?’
‘Yeah. He’s a member of this neo-Nazi group. We haven’t got the name.’
‘They’re called Section 88,’ said Carney. ‘They’re new or it’s a new set-up. We’ve not got much on them.’
‘But there’s something more. Lukanov’s scared.’
‘What of?’ asked Carney.
‘Something, someone – not sure. Maybe the organization itself. Any evidence they hurt their own?’
‘It happens, yeah. Usually in prison, if word gets around that someone’s talked.’
‘No big player out there frightening these lowlifes?’ asked Harper.
‘Unless it’s the leader. But we’ve not been able to infiltrate the hierarchy. They’ve kept themselves hidden and they never talk even if they get caught.’
Harper stood up and walked about the small apartment.
‘There’s something else,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘I want to talk about Esther Haeber.’
‘Who?’
‘Esther Haeber. Two months ago, you were involved in the investigation. I spoke to the Investigating Officer, Hilary McCain from Brooklyn Homicide. She’s a tough investigator, but she’s not stupid. Far from it. She got a prosecution out of it, but she wasn’t a hundred per cent on it. She said you knew the case. The perp was one of your regulars.’
‘That’s right. So what’s the problem?’
‘I don’t think your man did it. I think it’s one of our guys. You know what else? I went to see the crime scene and guess what I found?’
‘I don’t know, Tom.’
‘An 88 scratched into the concrete, about twenty yards from the body. This killer can’t help himself.’
‘Come on, Tom. An 88 that could have been scratched there by any lowlife. The perp was good for this.’
‘I don’t buy it. Esther Haeber goes walking late at night wearing gold jewelry in a part of Brooklyn that she should’ve avoided. Just like Capske. She’s carrying five hundred dollars that’s not taken from her purse. And yet, the story is, this killer follows her, then tries to rob her. She struggles. Maybe she screams. He gets scared and pulls out a gun.’
‘He panicked.’
‘Panicked? He left five hundred dollars on the body and before he shot her, he cut off each of her fingers, one by one. That’s not panic, Jack, that’s fucking pathological.’
‘I remember. He cut off her rings. They were worth something.’
‘Then he shoots her. The bullet goes right through her carotid artery, shatters her seventh cervical vertebra and lands in a beautiful brand new Porsche Carrera on the side of the street.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The owner was sick – that’s an eighty-thousand-dollar car,’ Jack Carney said.
‘Detective McCain didn’t find any leads to anyone else, but this guy fell into her lap.’
‘It was a homicide. Wasn’t my case.’
‘Why did they bring you in?’
‘Homicide wanted to see if there was evidence of hate crime. Someone heard some racial slurs about a half-hour before the murder. We looked into it. Impossible to get anywhere, and by the time we’d done the rounds, they had their man.’
‘Was there any racial motive?’
‘The killer was a racist, but he seemed to want money more than anything.’
‘How confident were you that the suspect was the killer?’
‘He had a history. They found her jewelry in his apartment. Still blood-smeared.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been through the case. Careless to keep that kind of thing.’
‘Damn right.’
‘But the crime scene left nothing. No prints, fibers, nothing. The bullet was in no shape to be analyzed. Seems incongruous.’
‘Mind that can cut someone like that isn’t thinking straight,’ said Carney.
‘Anything odd about the crime scene?’
‘I wasn’t at the crime scene, Tom, I was just advising. I was looking for evidence of hate crime.’
‘The killer who worked on David Capske wasn’t new to the game. He’s killed and hurt people before. I think Esther Haeber was one of his kills.’
‘Shit, you really think they jailed the wrong guy?’
‘I can’t be sure. But if you can remember any more detail, Jack . . .’
‘I’d need to revisit the case-files, try to jog my memory, see what I can come up with,’ said Carney.
‘I’d appreciate it.’
Jack nodded. ‘You’re either inspired or you got too many bumps to the head, Tom. Not sure which it is.’
‘Me neither. But Esther Haeber is supposed to have been mugged – yet the killer cuts off her fingers for some cheap jewelry and takes a fur coat, but he leaves her purse. I read the report, it doesn’t add up.’
‘He got spooked maybe. It happens.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s bugging me about this case. Simple as this – staging.’
‘What?’
‘This woman is staged to look like she’s been mugged but she hasn’t. But the cops look around, there’s no other motive so they’ve got nothing else to say. So they guess she struggled or he got scared and didn’t get to finish the job.’
‘She fought him, he reacted.’
‘I looked at the report. No scuff marks, nails unbroken, hair wasn’t even messed up. No sign of a struggle or fight. She must’ve been unconscious when he cut off her fingers. Else, there’d be more to see.’
Carney shrugged.
‘He had Capske out cold while he rolled him in wire. One more question. Did she have anything tattooed or written on her chest?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I just want the truth, Jack. The truth.’
‘You look long enough into the abyss, it starts to look back at you.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You seem wired. Keep things in perspective, Harper. You’re under a lot of pressure here and nothing’s breaking. Lukanov’s been found. Don’t go looking for the extravagant theory, when you’ve got your man in the can.’
‘I know, I know, I’ve had all those doubts myself, but I can’t stop thinking that there’s more to it.’ Harper pressed his hand on Carney’s shoulder, then headed out the door.