The Esther Code

by Michael Danneman

  Another picture of an elderly man in bed.

  “Victim Two is Hans Bierman, 94, found strangled in his own bed in a nursing home in Abilene, Texas.”

  Another close-up of a neck wound fills the screen.

  Jamie is bursting with questions about these murders, but instead of asking, she furiously scribbles them down on her tablet. Experience has shown that Fredericks ignores anything that interrupts his presentation and berates any person who does the same. Jamie must wait until the end. She glances to the side and sees Phil also writing on his own tablet.

  “Note the similarity of the wound.”

  Another note flashes on the screen. This time the big letters are “W.K.” In the bottom right corner is “dol,” and in the bottom left corner, “fon.”

  These notes have to be the key.

  “An interesting fact about this murder is that Mr. Bierman was visited earlier that day by a female, and there were female hairs found near the victim. It’s possible that the hair could belong to the perp, as no matches were made to employees of the nursing home. Either way, the hair hasn’t brought any new leads. All of his relatives have solid alibis.”

  Another victim. This one is slumped behind the bar in his home.

  “Third victim, Leon Farbor, 88, was found in his home in Flint, Michigan, by his cleaning lady. He had been dead for about a day. Mr. Farbor has one daughter. She is very financially secure—more so than her father, actually—as her husband is a successful stockbroker in Los Angeles. Local police found no forced entry, no possible motives, and, again, no usable evidence. The place was washed so clean as to suggest that the perp had considerable time to spend scrubbing away his presence.”

  Another mangled neck.

  “Same wound.”

  Another note. “A.R.” in big letters, with “por” in the bottom right-hand corner, “at in the middle and “ha” in the left-hand corner.

  The next slide depicts a new victim, in his bed.

  “The fourth victim, Fred Schmidt, 91, was murdered this past Sunday, near Chicago, in a nicer, more expensive assisted living facility. He was discovered early Monday morning. His time of death is estimated to be around 9 p.m. on Sunday night. Local police questioned the staff. Evidence points to a man in his thirties, with long hair, who was the last non-staff person to see Mr. Schmidt alive. The staff of the facility said the man had visited frequently on the weekends to read to the victim. He claimed to be from a church group, but no one can verify which group or whether it’s even true. Mr. Schmidt has a son who was unaware of anyone visiting his father. Again the room was spotless. No solid evidence, but we are still awaiting trace.”

  A final neck close-up.

  “Again, same wound.”

  And the last note. “F.S.” in big letters on the card. Spaced across the bottom: “parmo”, “sh”, and “ta.”

  Fredericks begins to say something, but is cut off as Thompson clears his throat and resumes, “VICAP has connected all of these cases, and now I need NCVAC to pick them up. I can’t stay, but I expect to be kept fully up-to-date. Alert me if another victim turns up, and I will decide when and what, the local police should be told about the others. We are checking databases for a similar M.O. and to find possible leads. I do not want the idea of a serial killer to come from some local police detective. It should come from us. But I want to see what you dig up first before we come out that we are on the case.”

  When he finishes, Thompson pauses a moment, perhaps expecting everyone to stand up. No one does. He briskly exits the room. Fredericks reestablishes control.

  “Cynthia, get the Chicago cops on the line.” He turns to the agents. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Do the victims have anything in common?” Phil raises a finger and opens the discussion.

  “We are researching the victims, but there’s nothing so far. I expect all of you to further delve into the victims’ lives and find any connections that might exist.”

  “Was it possible that Jules Henning was already in Salem? Does he have family or friends in that town?” Jamie asks.

  “According to his wife, he was home when she left him that morning. Next.”

  Joey jumps in. “So his car was not found in the post office parking lot?”

  “No, it was still at his residence in Schenectady.”

  “Did the local police find a possible crime scene in Mr. Henning’s home?” Jamie fires at him, not looking up as she scans her list of questions.

  “There is no evidence of a crime scene in the home.”

  Before Jamie can ask another question, Cynthia catches Fredericks’s eye.

  “Detective Ragsdale, please hold for Mr. Fredericks,” she intones automatically into the receiver of the conference table phone. Then she announces,” Mr. Fredericks, I have Detective Ragsdale from the Harwood Heights Police Department on the line.”

  “Good. Put him on speaker.” The crackle of new work becomes suddenly still as all pause to listen.

  Cynthia presses a button and then nods seriously to her boss.

  “Detective Ragsdale, this is Howard Fredericks, we spoke earlier. I have Special Agents Jamie Golding, Phil Clark and Joey Hughes listening in. Please tell us what you have so far?”

  A deep, gruff voice begins with a sigh, “In two decades on the job, I’ve never seen anything like this.” His tone becomes businesslike. “The victim was killed in a well-staffed assisted living center. One that costs a pretty penny, too. Secondly, all the surfaces in the room were wiped down with a strong cleaner. There wasn’t even dust around the legs of the bed. In other rooms you could find dust and debris under the bed, but this had been cleaned beyond what the best facility staff can do. The garbage can was newly emptied. Nothing....”

  “Can you explain to my team where and how the victim was found?”

  “The nursing assistant who found Mr. Schmidt said he was tucked in like a baby. Here’s where it gets ugly. She was sure he died in his sleep. The nurse practitioner that pronounced him dead didn’t even notice his neck at first. Mr. Schmidt’s sons were contacted and told that he died in his sleep. It was the funeral directors that saw the neck wound when they went to transfer him out of his bed and onto the gurney. After that a real nightmare ensued. They had to tell the family, and by the time I arrived, it had become heated, to say the least.”

  “Right. Now, the room? Maybe someone from the facility cleaned the room while Mr. Schmidt was sleeping?”

  “No, sir. I checked. The staff is adamant that they did not clean the room that night. Disturbs the residents, and all.”

  “There were no hairs or fibers near the wound? No prints? Nothing at all?” Fredericks asks.

  “Our guys are pretty good. They went over that room with a fine-tooth comb. In the end, they left with only one or two vials of nearly nothing, just some specks of dust, if you ask me. I’ll get you the results as soon as they are in, but the prelim doesn’t look like much. Won’t be too much help there.”

  “Detective Ragsdale, I am giving the file to Special Agent Golding. She will also be given your contact info. Tomorrow she will be flying out to Harwood Heights to meet with you and examine the crime scene. In the interim, Cynthia will get you her number, in case there are any new developments. Golding, any questions for the detective before we hang up?”

  “Do we know if there’s a way to contact the man who last saw Mr. Schmidt?”

  “No one knows who he is or where to start looking for him. His name was a fake and a dead end.”

  “Anything else?” Fredericks adds.

  “No, sir.”

  “Call us if anything changes. Thank you.”

  Before Detective Ragsdale can give a response, Cynthia hangs up the phone.

  “Jamie, for now this is essentially going to be your case.” At a nod from Fredericks, Cynthia gives several large file folders to Jamie. “Clark should have some time to help, but Hughes is too swamped.”

  Joey smiles gloatingly as he leans back in
his chair and crosses his arms.

  Jamie is relieved she will not have to work with Joey. Joey is the kind of agent that jumps in towards the end of an investigation and tries to take credit for everyone else’s work. Jamie prefers working with Phil, who is much more reliable, trustworthy, and, generally upright.

  Mr. Fredericks continues undeterred. “They will, however, both make themselves available to you if you turn up any leads. I want you to keep them apprised, as well as myself. Clark, Hughes, I do expect you to help her out when you can. I especially do not want any of you to do anything without backup. There is no telling what we are up against. When it is time to move in, I want it coordinated to the last detail. Absolutely no screw-ups here. I want a full team on the arrest with the best forensics possible. We’re going to have to hang this perp with the smallest thread of evidence that he leaves us. It has to be just right, or we’ll miss him. And we do not want him out on the streets any longer.”

  Mr. Fredericks glares straight into Jamie’s eyes. His face is gaunt, pale. “Jamie, I want you to go through the files and visit each crime scene. Then compose a profile to get to Behavioral. After that we can regroup and see how far we’ve gotten.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cynthia will arrange any accommodations you need, and she will be giving you the information. I have other business to attend to.”

  “I’ll email you an itinerary ASAP.” Cynthia briskly collects the laptop and powers down the projector. She dashes out of the room after Mr. Fredericks.

  “Good luck, Jamie! Let me know if I can help you with anything.” Joey smirks as he leaves the conference room.

  “Well, I don’t envy you too much with this case,” Phil says, gathering his tablet and coffee mug. Standing up, he adds, “I promise you can count on me if you need any help.”

  “You’re already first on my list, Phil.” Jamie returns the smile he gives her. “Joey drives me nuts—thinks he’s some kind of prima donna.”

  “Well said,” Phil chuckles. “Maybe he is.”

  Chapter 7

  Of course, not all of summer was just playing in the hills and following the wind. My mother and I lived with my grandparents, who owned the dry goods store. Most days during the summer I would work in the store helping. My chores included sweeping the floor, tidying up, and, with Mother’s help, stocking the shelves. As I grew older, my jobs increased. I could help write the prices, cut fabric, and take money for the penny candy.

  In the fall we would start school. Since my family was well off, I went to the private Neolog school, and Mary went to regular school. Mary was always eagerly waiting for me to come home, as my school finished a half hour later. We would often head to my grandparents’ dry goods store and get a piece of hard candy. My school offered a snack every morning, which was rare back then. We had uniforms that were required for school, sailor suits with a skirt. I always enjoyed learning and did well. I received ones in all my subjects. I was eager to learn more. Mary was not as interested in school and was prone to even get threes or fours in her subjects.

  Winter was always full of excitement. We would go ice-skating as often as our mothers would allow it and looked forward to sleigh rides through the snow. I also had a wooden sled that Mary and I would use to sled down the hills. We would come in half frozen but get quickly warmed up by hot stew for dinner.

  I wish now that those carefree years would have lasted forever. Sometimes as a child, you never realize how wonderful life is. Instead, you enjoy it without a thought of what is to come next. Those moments when we could escape into nature and play are memories I still treasure to this day.

  Chapter 8

  Jamie dodges people as she makes her way back through the wing. Relieved to be out of the parade in the hallways, Jamie steps into her office and receives a surprise: Seth Cooper is waiting there for her. He looks good in his work clothes, with his dark and curly hair combed. Smiling, Jamie puts the files on her desk and slumps into her chair with a quick, “Hey, what’s up?”

  Seth smiles back. “Up for a beer after work tonight? I’ve got no plans.” He takes a seat in the chair across from Jamie.

  “I don’t know. I just got a huge case.” She wants to go out, but with the conference fresh in her mind, she feels stressed by the importance of the new assignment.

  Seth eyes the pile on her desk. “What is it?”

  Jamie pauses for effect. She can always count on Seth. He’s been there for her since college. It is Seth who talked her into joining the Bureau and even helped her get on there.

  “It’s a serial killer case. Strange one if you ask me. Unusual, I mean. I will have to spend the night combing through these files for leads.”

  Seth rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well, you do have to eat. Let’s get a quick bite around six. You can’t pull an all-nighter on an empty stomach.”

  Jamie half smiles at Seth, then caves. “Alright, sure.”

  “Great!” Seth jumps up from the chair. “Got to get back to the Forensics lab.”

  “Oh I know. The FBI Crime Lab is lost without you, their amazing supervisor.” Jamie loves teasing Seth. She feels her tightness dissolving with laughter.

  “That’s right,” Seth says confidently, putting his hands in his pants pockets. “See you tonight.”

  “Call me.” Jamie moves her chair closer to her desk and grabs the top file off the stack.

  “Yeah.” Seth walks out of the room. He takes a quick glance back at Jamie, who is lost in her work before he has even left.

  * * * *

  Jamie rubs her eyes for the third time in the last ten minutes. She has studied each file. She had hoped that there might be something there to link these four victims. Something that, by itself, might not seem relevant to the local homicide detective, but that would show up in all four files together. The only commonality is that the victims are elderly white males strangled with a wire ligature. Maybe the trips to the crime scenes will turn up some kind of pattern. She does think it very odd that they are so spread out. More often serial killers start close to home and stay within a confined radius.

  She picks up her coffee cup, only to find it is already empty. Standing up to go refill it, she recalls that she has already had three cups. Jamie sinks back into her chair and reads each file again. Her mind is trying to wrap itself around the fact someone would purposely kill elderly males who only have years, if not months, left to live. Why kill a man who is in his eighties or nineties? What is the point?

  It could be that the elderly do not put up as much resistance. Easy to overpower. Possibly, the murderer might be physically weak with a strong psychopathic desire to kill. For some reason his demons direct him to kill males, and he simply cannot succeed against someone younger and stronger. Maybe that is why the murderer is using a ligature of some sort as his weapon. He wants to watch the victim die, but he lacks the strength to inflict a mortal wound.

  Maybe the murderer had some sort of abusive relationship with a father figure, which would explain why he kills older men. If these men represented his father, that would place the murderer in his fifties or sixties. Looking over the report again, Jamie notices that the latest victim had a visitor from a man in his thirties, and the man in Abilene had a visitor from a female, also in her thirties. Same perp? It is possible. Master of Disguise? What if it is not the same killer? These are elderly men after all. With the right tools, a woman could easily strangle an old man. Even so, how did the perp get close enough to slip a wire around their necks without being stopped?

  Could it be a grandfather figure? Is the perp someone who grew up with an abusive grandfather? Do the victims resemble each other? If so, the victims might look like the abusive father or grandfather. If it is someone out to kill his “grandfather”, then the killer may have similar physical characteristics as well. The ages of the victims are a very tight range, 88-94. That should be significant.

  Another consideration. Are elderly men more trusting, and thereby more willing to le
t a stranger into their homes? How did the perp know that they would be alone? And not all of them were alone. Why take the risk of getting caught by killing someone in a nursing home? Then again, if you want targets in their eighties and nineties, then that is where you would find them. But what drives a need to kill men in this age range? Very bizarre. It is interesting that none of the victims were found right away. The killer had plenty of time to disappear back into society.

  Jamie again reads the statements from the people who found each of the bodies, along with the shocking discovery by a funeral home director. There has to be a link to all of these cases.

  The geography is also perplexing. If the perp is fixated on killing his abusive grandfather, or someone who resembles him, what is the explanation for the vast distances between the victims? Often, the first victim is someone very close to home. Someone the killer might see several times, until the demons talk the killer into acting on those sick thoughts. That might explain the first victim, but the others…why so far apart?

  With the advent of social media, maybe the perp sees pictures of the victims on the Internet, and the sight of his “grandfather” triggers his rage. If only people really knew what the bad guys can get from pictures online. So many pictures now are taken by smartphones with a GPS. The same geo-tracking technology that enables location services also puts a geotag on the pictures. A perp can find a picture online, then access the data file and determine exactly where the picture was taken. So maybe our perp chose his victims based solely on what they looked like, then tracked their location via geotagging.

  The planning is so meticulous. A true compulsive behavior would lead to a more spontaneous attack and therefore be disorganized. This perp, like a lot of psychopaths, is highly intelligent and is organized.

  The notes found at each murder seem to be the most linking factor. Why leave a note with your murder victim? To prove some sort of point? Maybe to leave a calling card? A signature?

  Her next thought is that it might be some sort of code. Maybe the words are scrambled. She takes the first note “Pars” ,”hon”, and “dota.” Rap, hons, toad? Maybe all the words on the bottom are meant to be strung together as one. Sharp, tharps, donts, stood, shot, rash, rasp. She needs to use all the letters which would make it that much harder. That’s what computers are good for.