“Excellent observations.”
“We know we’re looking for a white man who’s probably in his thirties, a loner, someone who doesn’t draw attention to himself but nonetheless may make neighbors uncomfortable just by his aloofness. If only we could narrow down an area where he might live, but the murders have occurred over such a wide range of territory that he really could live anywhere.”
The two men continued to discuss the file and their notes. Holmes added a drawing a sketch artist had created for the SFPD based on the various witness accounts to the pile of paper.
The evening paper saw another letter printed—the Zodiac was getting bold in his lust for attention. The letter came with another piece of Stine’s shirt enclosed with it and had “Rush to the editor” written on the envelope.
This is the Zodiac speaking I though you would need a good laugh before you get bad news you won’t get the news for a while yet
PS could you print this new cipher on your frunt page? I get awfully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing!!!!!!
Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7
“What could that number mean?” asked Watson.
“I suspect it’s a body count,” answered Holmes. “And it seems like the Zodiac is losing his grip on reality. These notes seem to be deteriorating in lucidity.”
Chapter 17
The Search
After the police released the sketch of the Zodiac to the public, the SFPD was flooded with anonymous tips. People were turning in their own relatives, and countless hysterical calls demanded that the police come to this or that street because the Zodiac was there at that very moment. The police investigated each plausible tip while Holmes and Watson continued looking into the matter on their own.
They started in the Presidio since that was where the Zodiac had made his last kill and also where he had been the most careless. The two went door to door, as well as approaching people in the street, looking for additional witnesses or clues.
As the days passed and no more violent murders made the front-page news, Holmes suspected that the Zodiac’s close brush with the police had him in hiding. The Zodiac couldn’t survive long without the attention he had come to crave, though, and after several days, another letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle, this one on November 10, 1969.
This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I committ my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, + a few fake accidents, etc.
The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them.
1 I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill
2 As of yet I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what the police say in my killings I wear transparent fingertip guards. All it is is 2 coats of airplane cement coated on my fingertips -- quite unnoticible + very efective
3 my killing tools have been boughten through the mail order outfits before the ban went into efect. Except one & it was bought out of the state. So as you can see the police don’t have much to work on. If you wonder why I was wipeing the cab down I was leaving fake clews for the police to run all over town with, as one might say, I gave the cops som bussy work to do to keep them happy. I enjoy needling the blue pigs. Hey blue pig I was in the park -- you were useing fire trucks to mask the sound of your cruzeing prowl cars. The dogs never came with in 2 blocks of me + they were to the west + there was only 2 groups of parking about 10 min apart then the motor cicles went by about 150 ft away going from south to north west
p.s. 2 cops pulled a goof abot 3 min after I left the cab. I was walking down the hill to the park when this cop car pulled up + one of them called me over + asked if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in the last 5 to 10 min + I said yes there was this man who was runnig by waveing a gun & the cops peeled rubber + went around the corner as I directed them + I disappeared into the park a block + a half away never to be seen again. “must print in paper.”
Hey pig doesn’t it rile you up to have your noze rubed in your booboos?
If you cops think I’m going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads. Take one bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer + 1 gal of stove oil & dump a few bags of gravel on top + then set the shit off + will positivily ventalate any thing that should be in the way of the blast.
The death machine is all ready made. I would have sent you pictures but you would be nasty enough to trace them back to developer + then to me, so I shall describe my masterpiece to you. The nice part of it is all the parts can be bought on the open market with no questions asked.
1 bat. Pow clock -- will run for aprox 1 year
1 photoelectric switch
2 copper leaf springs
2 6v car bat
1 flash light bulb + reflector
1 mirror
2 18” cardboard tubes black with shoe polish inside + oute
Mirror
bus
Bombs (1 bag each)
6V Bat
6V Bat
bus goes bang car
pass es by ok.
The system checks out from one end to the other in my tests. What you do not know is whether the death machine is at the sight or whether it is being stored in my basement for future use. I think you do not have the manpower to stop this one by continually searching the road sides looking for this thing. + it wont do to re roat + re schedule the busses because the bomb can be adapted to new conditions.
Have fun!! By the way it could be rather messy if you try to bluff me.
PS. Be shure to print the part I marked out on page 3 or I shall do my thing.
To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start collecting of slaves.
“So I was right about the body count,” said Holmes. Every letter made him angrier—the self-satisfaction that dripped from every word was infuriating. “Such evil should not be allowed to walk these streets any longer.”
“We will catch him,” Watson assured his friend. “And this time, we will not show any sort of mercy. Do you think he was serious, though, when he made that threat about the school bus?”
“Right now, I don’t think he would carry such a thing out,” Holmes answered. “After all, he didn’t hurt Mark. But who knows when his twisted mind will warp further, and he will need to carry out increasingly depraved acts to satisfy whatever dark urges make him murder. When that happens, heaven help San Francisco.”
Chapter 18
Pull Over
November 1969
It had been a long time since the Zodiac’s last “play date.” He was getting restless. The police were getting closer and that scared him, but for some reason, he couldn’t stop himself from sending the letters. Whenever he dropped one in a mailbox or saw his words recreated in a newspaper, he got a dark thrill that was almost as good as killing. People knew who he was now, and they were afraid of him; the power made him giddy.
Eventually he could control himself no longer. He decided to take a nighttime drive, and if he stumbled across a convenient victim, he wouldn’t deny himself. He was riding down Highway 132 with his windows down, enjoying the crisp breeze, when he noticed a young woman pass him.
He couldn’t resist. He started to tail her and flash his headlights.
The girl noticed the tan car flashing its lights and pulled over to the side of the road. She rolled down her window. She leaned her head out and watched a man leave his car and walk toward her.
“Hello, I noticed one of your wheels was wobbling, and I didn’t want you to have a blowout and get stranded so late at night,” the Zodiac said as he noticed the girl’s ten-month-old child in the backseat. “Do you want me
to take a look at it?”
“Thank you very much,” the girl said. She had originally been suspicious, ready to hit the gas and drive into the night, but now she felt grateful for the actions of a Good Samaritan. It would have been terrible to have a flat tire—or worse, a wreck—with her child in the car, especially late at night when it might take a long time to flag down help.
She stayed in the car while the Zodiac tinkered with the tire. She felt the car rock slightly. A few minutes later, he leaned into her window.
“All good now,” he said and smiled. “You have a safe drive now.”
“Thank you!” she said again. “You too.”
As she carefully pulled back onto the road, the Zodiac smiled and patted the lug nuts in his pocket—he’d removed them from the tire. Now he’d just have to follow her for a few miles—probably less—and wait for the next step in his plan.
He tailed her in his own car, unsurprised when he saw her jerk violently to the side of the road. The tire flew off and rolled in the other direction.
When the Zodiac stopped behind her again, he could hear her child wailing in the backseat.
“Looks like it just isn’t your night,” the Zodiac told her. “I am not the mechanic I thought I was. Hop in, and I’ll give you a ride to the next gas station. What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Kathleen Johns,” she answered while unbuckling her baby from the car seat. “And thank you again; you truly are going above and beyond.”
“I’m Jack,” the Zodiac told her, annoyed she hadn’t asked. It was rude of her, but he’d overlook it. Or he’d punish her for it.
Kathleen settled into the seat beside him and held her daughter in her lap. They passed several service stations, and she tentatively said, “That one looks fine. See, there’s a pay phone!”
But the Zodiac did not stop, nor did he speak to her. Kathleen noticed how his mouth was set in a grim line, and his eyes were dark with some strange emotion.
When they stopped at an intersection, Kathleen fumbled with the door handle, burst into the street, and ran through an open field. Panting, she half slid down a hill and hid in a drainage ditch, humming softly to her daughter to keep the child from crying. “It’s OK, sweetheart,” she said. “It will be OK. Just please, please don’t make noise.”
She waited to hear the sounds of the man searching for them, but she never did. She just heard the sound of a car motor fading into the distance and then the soft silence of the night.
When she felt it was safe, Kathleen approached the road again, her heart pounding. The first person to drive by was an elderly woman who took pity on the woman and child standing alone in the road, and she gave Kathleen a ride to the police station.
By then, she was almost hysterical.
One of the officers, feeling a hunch, brought her a copy of the sketch of the Zodiac Killer. “Kathleen,” he said, “is this the man who tried to kidnap you?”
Kathleen’s eyes were riveted to the poster. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh my God, we’re lucky to be alive!”
The police found Kathleen’s car right where she had left it, but the vehicle was a burned out shell—it had been set on fire to destroy any evidence and, perhaps, to punish Kathleen for getting away. Kathleen would gladly have sacrificed one hundred cars, though, for the life of herself and her child.
The Zodiac had been very frustrated when Kathleen dashed into the field. He had so wanted to see the life fade from someone’s eyes that night. Of course, he wouldn’t have harmed the baby, but he would have tortured Kathleen with the possibility of it, at least. However, he hadn’t felt safe continuing the hunt for her on foot. The area had too much traffic and thus too much risk.
Holmes received a phone call from Detective Davis about the incident the next day. He looked over the reports that Davis sent over and knew how close the girl had come to being another murder victim. He knew catching the Zodiac would take patience, but he was rapidly losing the cool he had prided himself on for so long. With the murders spread out over the city and surrounding areas, how could he pin down the most likely place for the Zodiac to live?
Then he remembered something he had told Watson as part of his profile—a killer’s first murders were usually close to home. Cheri Jo was probably the Zodiac’s first murder, and so the Zodiac most likely lived near the community college. Holmes would search the area in a five-mile radius, and he was sure if he caught even a glimpse of Jack, he would recognize the man. No one could change that much.
The man probably worked fairly close to his home as well. Holmes knew that being a writer didn’t pay much in modern America, so the Zodiac’s prior profession of poet wouldn’t serve him well. Newspaper hours would give him flexibility but also expose him to too many people who might pick up on his odd personality and start asking questions. He also remembered that Jack had once studied to be a surgeon, so Sherlock thought he might now work in the medical field in some capacity. Holmes made note of any hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes in the area. The Zodiac would probably be in a place where he could blend in with all the other workers, somewhere with flexible hours and not much interaction with coworkers. This would be a big undertaking, but it was something that had to be done. The Zodiac had made hiding in plain sight a true skill, but it was time to bring the monster to the light and to justice.
“Holmes, we found something in the cab that I think might be a lead,” Detective Davis said over the phone when he called him that afternoon to debrief him further on the Kathleen Johns case.
“Splendid! What is it?”
“Now, it could be nothing, but I thought you might want to check it out. We found a book of matches stuffed behind the backseat cushion. It might not be his, but normally the cabdrivers clean out their cabs after every shift, which includes behind the seats,” Davis said. “The matchbook says ‘Monteclift Apartments’ on it.”
“Excellent! That apartment building just so happens to be in our grid. We haven’t made it there yet, but it will be next on the list, I assure you,” Holmes said excitedly. “We will go door to door and show his picture. It’s a big apartment building, and we may not get it all done in one day.”
Chapter 19
Ready to Run
The Zodiac knew he would have to run; though he had now been laying low for almost two years, the police had not given up their search for him. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they caught him—someone, a well-meaning neighbor or a passerby, would give him away.
He was angry at himself for being so cocky and reckless. Unlike in his youth, he no longer had his parents’ wealth to cushion his whims. If he left now, he would be leaving behind the only material possessions he owned with no means of buying anything new. He would have to seek out a new job and sleep in his car until he saved enough to rent another apartment. He was so frustrated. Think! Think! he scolded himself. Why did I stuff that matchbox into the backseat pocket of the cab? Do I want to be caught?
He poured himself a glass of bourbon on ice and sat down to decide what to do. After an hour, he had settled on a plan. He had been kicked out of the Illuminati shortly after he ceased being Jack the Ripper, since those in the upper echelons of that secret society had not been pleased with his failure to discredit Sherlock Holmes and the Count of Monte Cristo. However, that didn’t mean he had lost all ties—one of his liasions with a young factory worker when he first immigrated to America had resulted in a son, and that son’s descendants now lived in Arkansas and were also involved in the Illuminati. Holmes is not the only one who managed to have a family, he thought smugly to himself. And family won’t turn away family—perhaps they will help me. After all, they say blood is thicker than water, and I’ve certainly seen enough blood to know.
He knew it would be a long drive, but desperation pushed him forward; he didn’t have anyone else to turn to. Along the way, he slept in his car on side roads and lived off of gas-station food, not wanting to take the time to sit in a diner or risk making a memor
y in some observant waitress’s mind. When he finally reached Arkansas, he found himself growing more peaceful—the long stretches of pine forest and bucolic small towns gave him a feeling of safety.
His descendants had done quite well for themselves, though, and the mansion he eventually approached was intimidating, especially when he compared it to the small, grubby apartment he rented.
He rang the doorbell and stood impatiently, waiting for a few moments before a maid in a stiff navy uniform opened the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked suspiciously. The scruffy, stocky man in front of her didn’t look like he could possibly know her employers.
“I’m here to see Benjamin Walsh,” he said. “On family business.”
The maid continued to scrutinize the Zodiac. She did see a certain resemblance about the eyes. “Come and wait in the study,” she said. “I’ll see if Mr. Walsh has time to speak with you. Who should I tell him wishes to speak with him?”
The Zodiac smiled. “Tell him…Jack Ripper.”
Zodiac Killer: Newly Discovered Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 7
