The Esther Code

by Michael Danneman

  Seth watches her calmly, not interrupting.

  Jamie blows the air out of her mouth in exasperation. “I feel like it is me keeping this relationship together. Why should I have to make all the sacrifices?” Jamie finishes.

  “A one-sided relationship does not work,” Seth agrees quietly. I would be so good to you.

  “You’re right. She thinks for a moment, then finally sees Seth watching her with concern. “Thanks for letting me rant. I appreciate it.”

  “Any time.” He returns to his sandwich.

  Jamie polishes off the last bite of her dinner. She rolls up the sub wrappings and throws them in the trash under the kitchen sink.

  “You might think about dating someone who is Jewish,” Seth suggests. “It might make things easier. And it would be less complicated if you did get serious.”

  “Really, Seth? You’re kidding, right?” Jamie questions him, heading toward her refrigerator.

  “It is important, you know. My father would turn over in his grave if I married out,” Seth explains, standing up and throwing the rest of his sandwich in the trash.

  “I’m dying for a glass of wine. Do you want some?” She pulls a bottle out of the fridge. She pours wine into her empty water glass, until it is about one-third full.

  Seth nods, and Jamie fills his glass too.

  “Let’s talk in here—it’s more comfortable,” Jamie suggests, already heading across the hallway to the living room.

  “Sure.” Seth follows Jamie at just enough distance to enjoy the view.

  “What about your mother? Would she care if you ‘married out’?” She takes a seat on one side of the brown leather couch. She tucks her knees up under her chin, making sure to pull the shirt down as she sits, covering her legs a little better.

  Seth sits nearer the middle of the couch, close to Jamie but not too close. He takes a sip of wine before setting it on the coffee table. “Well, since I’m an only child, my mother just wants me to get married. She wants grandchildren so badly, but really she still expects my wife to be Jewish. And Shap gives me grief if I even look at a non-Jewish girl. He makes me feel more guilt than all of my relatives put together.”

  “My parents aren’t really dedicated to the whole Jewish heritage thing. I mean, they never give me the big dose of ‘Jewish guilt’ or lecture me about ‘marrying in’. Look at my brother. He married out, and his kids were even baptized Christians. So, yeah, not a big deal.”

  Seth decides to change the subject. “So, you flying out again tomorrow?”

  “Yep, I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow, for a case with the same M.O.—I’m going to check it out. Then I fly out again on Monday morning. The onsite investigations are going to keep me busy,” Jamie finishes, resting her chin on her knees.

  “What about this weekend?”

  “I’m going to be working on this case, getting all my facts together. I have to make a profile for Behavioral. I’ve gotta fill in as many holes as I can, so I can give the best picture to Psych when I get back. I want to go over it beforehand, so I can make the most of my trip. What about you?”

  “Margie and I are supposed to get together, if she doesn’t blow me off like she did earlier this week.” Seth harrumphs his annoyance.

  “Uh oh!”

  “Yeah, I just don’t think it is going anywhere. She seems bored with me. And I can’t figure out where it went wrong.”

  “I doubt it is you,” Jamie reassures him. “You’re the nicest guy in the world and no doubt the best boyfriend ever. She’s stupid not to snatch you up.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Seth, give yourself more credit than that. Dump her, and find a better girl. She isn’t worth it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll find a nice Jewish girl soon enough.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  There is a lull in the conversation. Jamie smiles at Seth. She feels almost warm inside as he gazes back into her eyes. She reaches out a hand, which he takes. The hand surrounding hers is soft and warm.

  A ringing breaks the silence. Jamie jumps up and puts her glass of wine on the coffee table. She runs down the hallway to her bedroom to find her cell phone going off loudly. Jamie checks it, only to see that it is several texts from Joey asking for her to meet him at a local dance club. He must be drunk. Exasperated, she returns to the living room.

  “Joey is such a dick,” Jamie remarks snidely, showing Seth her phone. “I can’t even imagine why he would think I would meet him at a club to talk about ‘work’. Yeah, right, how stupid does he think I am?"

  “He needs backup,” Seth jokes.

  “Probably.” Jamie chuckles appreciatively at the thought.

  “Well, I’m traveling tomorrow, so I should probably get to bed early,” Jamie says apologetically.

  If I had any balls at all, I would be joining you.

  “Yeah, I should get home,” Seth concedes falsely, trying to hide his disappointment. He finishes off the rest of the wine and sets his glass on the coffee table next to Jamie’s. He stands up and starts to walk toward the front door.

  Jamie follows him. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “No problem. Hope you sleep well after all that traveling, and good luck on your research,” Seth exhorts her.

  “Thanks. I think I will sleep just fine. Oh, and thanks again for the subs.”

  “Anytime.” Seth smiles and gives Jamie a goodbye hug.

  She squeezes him back, glad to have such a close friend. They both step back and stand awkwardly in her entryway for a moment.

  “Well, bye,” Seth says and opens the door.

  “See you later!” Jamie calls as he disappears down the stairs. She locks her door before he makes it out of the building.

  Heading to her bedroom she cannot help thinking about what a great guy Seth is. Why hasn’t some nice Jewish girl taken him off the market?

  Like she always does when she has a big case, Jamie reads over her notes before bed. Often, as her brain relaxes on its way to sleep, she gets a sudden epiphany. An “Aha!” moment. She keeps a pad of paper and a pen on her nightstand, so she can capture those moments of insight when they occur.

  As she reads her notes, one thing bothers Jamie. Are the dates of the murders really random? If so, why did the killer in Harwood Heights not kill on an earlier visit when he would also have had the chance? Jamie looks closely at the dates, then pulls up Google and types in the date of the first murder.

  September 29, 2010. It was a Wednesday. There is a Wikipedia article for that day. Jamie clicks on the link; maybe it will provide her with something she does not already know. Apparently, September 29, 2010, is the 272nd day in the Gregorian calendar. She scrolls down the page, reviewing at all of the events that occurred on September 29th. The entry includes dates from 522 B.C. until present. It includes events like the adjournment of the first United States Congress and a tsunami near the Samoan Islands. But none of it clearly relates to murdering old men. September 29, 1982, saw the start of the Chicago Tylenol murders. That case was never solved. This could be something—sometimes “copycat” killers idolize other serial killers and try to mimic them. All of the Tylenol victims were in Illinois, and so was one of Jamie’s. A possible clue?

  She returns to her Wiki article and scrolls down to find that English serial killer Fred West was born on the same date in 1942. Another possibility, which Jamie adds to her list. She finishes reading the page. Under “Holidays and Observances”, Jamie sees nothing interesting, unless International Coffee Day counts as a reason to kill an old man. She mentally chuckles at the ridiculous idea.

  Sticking with Wikipedia, Jamie searches the site for March 20, 2011. A Sunday. She reads through another list of links to moments in history. There is nothing interesting in births, deaths, or other events. Holidays include Earth Day, Sparrow Day, Storytelling Day, and International Happiness Day. A gas attack on the Tokyo subway killed twelve and wounded 1300. Pope Clement III died on
that date in 1130.

  October 11, 2011. Another Wednesday. No events stand out to her.

  Next is March 18, 2012. Another Sunday. Flag Day in Aruba and Men’s and Soldiers’ Day in Mongolia. The largest art theft in U.S. history, twelve paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Maybe the victims were art thieves, and their killer, a crusader for justice.

  She enters the last date, February 24, 2013. Yet another Sunday. Jamie sighs and notes that it was an Independence Day for Estonia (one of several), Flag Day in Mexico, and National Artist Day in Thailand. The National Constitution in Cuba was proclaimed in 1976, and Cuban president Fidel Castro retired from the position in 2008.

  She notes that three of the murders happened on a Sunday and two on a Wednesday. Convenience? Coincidence? Or perhaps it is something else.

  Chapter 15

  As Jamie gets ready for the day, she is still ruminating on the information from the night before. The birth of an English serial killer or the day the Chicago Tylenol murders started does not provide an obvious connection to her killer. She would have to research each one individually, but Jamie’s hunch is that both of them are dead ends. She packs a bag to take to New Orleans for the day.

  Soon enough, she is driving a rental car to the home of the late Jonas Kerekes.

  As she drives through the Bywater neighborhood, Jamie hits the power locks. She feels the eyes of the locals watching her drive through their turf. The houses are shotgun homes, more like little cottages stacked right next to one another. Having done some research while waiting to board the plane, Jamie knows that Katrina did not flood this part of New Orleans. But she can see the wind damage from the hurricane. The trees are so broken and twisted that, even several years later, they are not fully recovered.

  As the voice on the GPS announces, “You have arrived at your destination,” Jamie looks at the house to her right. Like all of the other houses on the street, this one has only a front door and a single window on its face. Huge wrought-iron bars barricade both door and window. Jamie cautiously pulls the car up to the curb. When she knocks on the front door, it opens almost immediately, but a screen blocks Jamie from entering.

  “Whaddya want?” grunts a gruff, male voice through the screen and the bars.

  “Hi, is Mrs. Kerekes at home?” Jamie asks politely. Her eyes examine the layout of the home quickly and make a mental picture, so she can later reenact the crime in her mind.

  “Nobody with that name lives here.” The man slams the door.

  Not exactly what Jamie had been hoping for. She lingers a moment longer on the porch, taking in all aspects of the view. She tries to imagine the perp walking right up to the door, murdering the old man just inside his house, then signaling the wife to call 9-1-1 by claiming that her husband is having a heart attack. The paramedics come in and, not realizing it is a crime scene, start trying to resuscitate the victim, in the process disturbing any evidence that might be there. Unbelievably bold, yet also brilliant.

  Jamie sees a black man slowly rocking in his rocking chair on the porch across the street. She remembers from the report that it was from the home across the street that someone saw something. She leaves the porch and crosses the street to the bright yellow house.

  When Jamie reaches the porch, she sees that the man’s eyes are closed. Jamie clears her throat, wanting to raise the man without scaring him. When she gets no response, she ascends the steps of the porch and knocks on the door.

  “She ain’t gonna hear ya.” The statement issues from the vicinity of the seemingly-asleep man.

  “I wanted to ask about the murder of Mr. Kerekes. I am looking for the witness who gave a statement.”

  “Another reporter, huh?”

  “Something like that.” Jamie shrugs, trying to appear more like a reporter than an FBI agent. It might help her get more information from him, especially in this neighborhood. The man does not stir from his current position. Leaning against the rail, Jamie looks at him expectantly.

  “I was just sittin’ here an’ saw a pizza delivery man drive up to Mr. Kerekes’ about 6:30 p.m. or so. Like any normal pizza guy, he just went to the door and all.”

  She is amazed at how little his lips move when he talks. Hastily she asks, “Did he have a pizza box? Or a pizza delivery bag?”

  “Yeah, I think I remember a blue bag.”

  Jamie pauses thoughtfully. There was no report of a pizza box found at the crime scene. The killer could have just carried a pizza delivery bag, and no one would have known whether or not there was pizza inside.

  “Did the car have a sign on top?” Jamie pursues, trying to sound like a top reporter.

  “If it did, it didn’t have no light in it.”

  “What did the car look like?”

  “Nothing special. A beat-up old car.”

  “And the pizza guy’s appearance?”

  “It was dusk, not much to see other than he was just as black as me.”

  “Anything else you remember about that pizza delivery guy? Something you thought of after you spoke with the police?”

  The man’s lips curl into his mouth, and his features scrunch up for a moment. “Nope.”

  “Was there anyone else who might have seen something that night? A fellow neighbor out on their porch?”

  “Uh uh,” the man grunts.

  “Well thank you for your time.” Jamie smiles.

  “Yep.”

  The man keeps rocking without moving any other muscle. Jamie watches him for a second and then makes her way down the porch stairs.

  She makes for the local police station, only to find a swamped detective who has the Kerekes file in the “Too Hard Box.” This is an FBI slang term for the place that files go when they belong somewhere between the inbox and the outbox, but instead the file sits, undisturbed and forgotten. The detective is not pursuing any leads and has dubbed the murder a random and senseless act of violence on par with what he sees every day. His precinct teems with gangs. When Jamie asks about the pizza delivery man and the witness across the street, the detective replies that the witness “couldn’t tell the difference between a pizza delivery car and a Ferrari.” Jamie disagrees but finds it pointless to argue. The detective informs her that the wife went to live with her son and died three months after her husband.

  The one thing she will be able take back with her is the overwhelming fact that these two men were targeted. One, while in a well-staffed assisted living center, and the other, in a densely-inhabited neighborhood.

  You are good, Simon W. Very good. Who the hell are you?

  Chapter 16

  The phone alarm rings, but Jamie is already awake. Sitting up, she retrieves her phone and silences it. The flight home last night left her slightly restless. She stands up and starts to get ready for a long run. What sleep Jamie managed to get was not refreshing—her brain buzzed all night, creating weird nonsense dreams. Even now, her mind is still trying to comprehend all of the information on the case. She stretches a bit and changes into her loose-fitting running clothes.

  Jamie grabs her CamelBak and fills it with water. She tightens it and walks out of her front door. Like she always does when she goes running, Jamie uses her spare key to lock the door, then ties up the key in the laces of her right shoe. The less she has to carry on a run, the better.

  Pushing open the outer door of the apartment complex, Jamie breathes in the crisp morning frost. She stretches out her calves on the stone steps of her building, still enjoying the cold air in her lungs. After a few more stretches, Jamie begins to walk briskly. She does not go towards the trail, but instead goes on Waterway Drive toward Spriggs Road. It is six miles exactly from her apartment to the end of Spriggs, which dead-ends at Hoadly Road. The way is familiar to her—her body follows the route automatically, allowing her thoughts to roam.

  The empty quiet of Saturday morning helps Jamie to concentrate solely on brainstorming about the case. She beg
ins to wonder if maybe the killer was in contact with the other victims before they were killed. This train of thought draws Jamie back to her main questions. How did the killer pick his victims? Is he a paid hitman? There is more to this than just randomly picking out a name in the phonebook. What made these victims different from other older gentlemen? Why these guys?

  Looking up, Jamie sees the Beth Israel synagogue on Spriggs. An eight-foot banner catches her eye. Festively decorated, it announces the Purim holiday and the carnival and costume contest being held at the synagogue. Jamie’s mind is flooded with memories.

  In the first grade, she had dressed up as Queen Esther. Jamie remembers feeling pretty in her regal costume. She remembers her excitement to enter the costume contest. She did not win. Images of Hebrew school come to her as well. She can vaguely remember making noisemakers. What are they called? Ah, groggers. Hebrew school was such a joke. There was a pervasive feeling that nobody wanted to be there on Sunday mornings. Even the teachers had no passion and a lack of faith in what they were teaching. Despite the attempts to make it fun for the children, Hebrew school was nothing but a disaster.

  A specific memory stands out. In third grade, one of her friends had asked the teacher if the Red Sea really split in two for the Israelites. The other kids and Jamie eagerly watched the teacher, whose face turned red as she stammered on about something no one understood. Jamie’s friend was persistent and asked the teacher more bluntly: did it, or did it not, happen? The teacher was obviously flustered and replied that it probably did not happen. Jamie recalls sitting there and wondering why, then, did she have to come here and learn about it?

  When Jamie was in fourth grade, her parents moved, and the nearest synagogue was twenty-five miles away. They might have gone once or twice when they first moved in, but they did not join, and Jamie stopped attending Hebrew school altogether. She has seldom since been to a synagogue. Barry Shapiro is the only person she knows with a strong connection to anything Jewish.