“What about the fact that one suicide was female and one male?”
“It fits—Hermann Goering was a cross-dresser!” Rabbi Silverman exclaims.
“No way!”
“Google ‘famous cross-dressers’, and Hermann Goering will be on the list!”
Jamie pulls out her smart phone and searches the name. She finds a website with a list of cross-dressers. Sure enough, Hermann Goering is on that list. “Crazy!” Jamie agrees, putting her smart phone off to one side.
“Okay. But there is still the problem of August 8. There was no Jewish holiday or Holocaust link on that date?” Jamie asks, trying to get back on topic.
“I’ve been thinking about that since you called and asked about it. Check this out. August 8th is 8/8. Remember when I said that the numerical values of ‘b’shushan Habira’ and ‘Nuremberg, Germany’ are the same? They are both 880. So that could be your 8/8. Also, 88 is a neo-Nazi symbol. ‘H’ is the 8th letter in the alphabet, so ‘88’ equals ‘Heil Hitler’. You can Google that as well. I was once driving to Atlanta for a wedding, and, when I was going through North Carolina, I saw a pickup truck with an ‘88’ bumper sticker.
“So maybe August 8th was chosen for that reason.”
Jamie Googles “88 as a neo-Nazi symbol” and gets several images of children proudly wearing their 88 t-shirts. Some are even shown making the “Heil Hitler” salute.
“Another interesting thing I found was that executions by the International Military Tribunal are usually carried out by firing squad and not hanging. So one would not have expected the condemned at Nuremberg to be hanged in the first place. In fact, the French judges in the Nuremberg trial wanted death by firing squad and were outvoted. Because of the heinous crimes these men had committed, the other judges thought that hanging would be more fitting for them. Remember that Esther said, ‘Let it be done tomorrow as it was done today, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.’ Interesting, huh?”
“I wonder if our guy factored in the suicide,” Jamie remarks, not willing to weigh in on whether the ten at Nuremberg were hanged because of the words Queen Esther uttered 2,500 years ago. “If it all started with a suicide on August 8th, it will further strengthen the pattern. With eight murders already committed, and a likely chance the killer is planning ten, I’ve got to stop him before he kills the last two. We are going to issue a warning, but we are not expecting a lot of cooperation from hiding Nazis.”
“I sure hope there are no more.”
“Thank you so much for your help, Rabbi. I think you have explained the August 8th link. It is pretty amazing that 880 is part of the Esther codes, and 88 is now a neo-Nazi symbol.”
“Please let me know if I can do anything else for you. When you are done with this case, if you ever want to come spend the Sabbath with our family, you are always welcome. Good food, deep discussions, singing…it’s a lot of fun.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Jamie answers, feeling slightly awkward for a moment. “Well, I have to get going.”
“Anytime, Jamie,” Rabbi Silverman reiterates with a smile, standing up from his seat.
“I’ll call you again if I need something else,” Jamie assures him, standing up and gathering her things.
“Please do.” He escorts Jamie out of the Kollel.
Back at her office, the words of Rabbi Silverman still ringing in her ears, Jamie checks to see if it could have all started with a suicide. Could it be that her perp would try to make it fit by staging a murder to look like a suicide? She turns to her computer and starts looking up suicides that occurred on August 8, 2010. There are plenty of them, but Jamie narrows down the search to males over eighty-five. Now there are four suicides that appear in the results. None seem to match. To be thorough, she includes females over eighty-five and finds another three.
Bingo! An 87-year-old woman, Erna Koch, was found dead in her home, a woman being investigated as a Nazi.
Reading further, Jamie discovers that Koch was being considered for deportation after she lied on her immigration papers. The police concluded that Koch committed suicide because of the defamation that resulted from the investigation into her background as a guard at the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. There was a typed suicide note found by the body. Typed and not handwritten? The file indicates that, in the note, Koch admitted to being a Nazi. It was an overdose of sleeping pills that took her life.
Unbelievable! The perp has taken these codes in the book of Esther so far that he even killed an elderly woman and made it look like a suicide, complete with a note. And not just any note, but a typed note. Although Jamie does not have a picture of it, she is almost sure that it would match the notes found at the other crime scenes.
It suddenly strikes Jamie how much work and thought has gone into these murders. It is not the usual work of covering the perp’s tracks and avoiding detection, but the additional effort to make each killing fit the pattern, as well as the book of Esther and the hangings of the ten Nazis at Nuremberg. The perp even went so far as to engineer a suicide to start the murders, then to strangle each victim with a cord, which mimics death by hanging. An unexpected shiver shakes Jamie, and goose bumps break out on her arms. The case has just become creepy to her in a way she had never thought of before.
Ignoring the emotions and thoughts rioting in her head, Jamie pulls out her tablet and reviews the information she has collected from Rabbi Silverman. She has to catch this perp before the next person is murdered. Looking back at the pattern and looking forward on the Jewish calendar, Jamie writes down her eerie conclusion.
Thursday, August 8, 2013—9th victim
Wednesday, September 25, 2013—10th victim
These two men, wherever they are, already have appointments with death. Jamie glares at those dates, promising herself that she will do all she can to save the marked men, despite their dark pasts. At least she has the dates of the future murders; now she just has to find the victims.
Chapter 42
August 8th, 2013
Simon sits in a rental car on one of the side streets to a sprawling condominium complex. He glances at the time again, then looks down the street at the few cars, which are parked in front of their respective condos. His clothing is all brand new, even his socks and underwear. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder. A hairnet neatly contains all of his locks, and he wears a do-rag to conceal the hairnet. He pulls out a burner phone that he bought with cash earlier that day. Using the phone, he dials the number he has memorized just for this moment.
“Hello?” an older, male voice answers, slightly out of breath.
“Hi, I’m Frank Brooks, from your CVS pharmacy. I have a prescription here for Susan Weiss that was called in by Dr. Amanda Hilson. It needs to be picked up as soon as possible as the prescription expires today,” Simon says in a professional tone.
“Thank you, I will send the nurse to pick it up,” the man on the other end replies. “I’ll have her come by now.”
“Thanks, I’ll be looking for her. Have a nice day.” He ends the call and trains his eye on the condo at the far end of the block. A middle aged woman wearing scrubs emerges. Simon smiles to himself, glad to see the visiting nurse leave the residence carrying an oversized pocket book. Between a wife who cannot walk anymore and visiting nurses present around-the-clock, Simon has had to carefully plan this attack. The condo is a long, two-story stucco building with evenly-spaced doors. Each door accesses four condos, two on the first floor and two on the second.
Simon takes his opportunity. He enters the building and places a sticky note over the seeing eye of the condo on the lower level, to his left. He then goes behind the stairwell, removes some newspaper from his backpack and spreads it out on the floor, and places the backpack on the paper. He quickly puts on an impervious coverall suit, shoe covers, latex gloves, fanny pack, and surgical cap. He leaves the backpack under the stairwell and approaches the door of the condo on the right. Simon knocks.
&nbs
p; An older gentleman opens the door. He is completely bald and is supporting his weight with a walker. He surveys Simon with distrust. “Who are you?”
“Sorry to bother you. I’m from Nursing Aids Assisted Living Program, and I am doing a routine unscheduled visit. I have come to make sure you are satisfied with the nursing service we provide,” Simon explains politely.
“Why are you dressed like that?” the geezer demands boldly, pointing his finger at Simon’s chest.
“Due to the nature of my job, I come in contact with many types of illnesses and diseases. For your safety, and for the safety of others, I am required to wear this jumpsuit, to keep contamination at a minimum. And, yes, I put on a new one for each client I visit,” Simon tells him eloquently, as though he has made this speech a thousand times.
“The nurse just went to the pharmacy for us.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll only be about ten minutes or so. Can we go in?” Simon asks with a smile.
“Er, right. Come in,” the old man concedes, opening the door all the way and moving aside to let Simon in.
“Thank you. Let’s sit down,” Simon suggests, continuing with his façade.
The old man gestures Simon to his couch, while the old man himself takes the nice easy chair placed opposite.
Before Simon sits down, he says, “I must have left the form in the car. I’ll be right back.”
The old man rolls his eyes and replies sarcastically, “Take your time.”
Simon gets up, watching the old man out of the corner of his eye. He does not move. He seems to be content to sit and wait for Simon. Delighted, Simon removes the garrote from his fanny pack and sneaks up on his prey. Simon slides the wire around the old man’s neck and pulls each end. The old man reaches up and tries to grasp the wire, to pull it loose.
Simon then murmurs, just loud enough for the old man to hear, “Alfred Weiss, Zeit für Sie, für Ihre Kriegsverbrechen sterben.”
Time for you to die for your war crimes.
Simon then pulls each end tighter and tighter, until he can watch the man’s life force fade away.
When it is finished, he removes the garrote and places it back into the fanny pack. He then stares aimlessly at a small, ornate clock on the coffee table. He cannot catch his breath. His chest is tightening, and he is unable to divert his gaze from the clock as his field of vision narrows. He is about to pass out. Suddenly there is a loud thud as the old man slumps forward and hits his head on the coffee table. Simon snaps back to himself and is able to slow down his breathing before he blacks out. He takes a minute to regain composure then exits the condo. He is already at the door when he turns back to place the note on the coffee table. He returns the fanny pack, coveralls, gloves, and shoe covers to the backpack. He removes the sticky note from the neighbor’s door and casually walks away.
Chapter 43
Jamie has a list of all living persons investigated by the United States Department of Justice Special Operations Unit. She has contacted them and encouraged them to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
Jamie paces nervously in her office. She knows she will be getting the call soon. As she had feared, she has been swamped with work ever since the press conference. She has received several leads from police that she has had to investigate. Once the word got out that there is a vigilante killing Nazis across the country, hundreds of people started calling their local police, suspecting the loner neighbor or the grocery store bag boy that has a funny look about him. There have even been women accusing their ex-boyfriends, as an act of spite or revenge. And, of course, Jamie has been notified every time some crazy stopped by his local precinct to confess and demand that he be arrested for the killings.
She has tried to focus more attention on a very vocal, Jewish blogger in Florida, who rants about no one caring anymore about the Holocaust, and about the recent rise of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe being ignored by mainstream media. He also writes that there were more anti-Semitic attacks in Europe in 2012 than there were in 1939. He has published several threatening letters-to-editors of newspapers that he claims have anti-Israel bias. He has clear-cut alibis for several of the dates, so it is impossible for him to be the killer; and he does not appear to have the financial resources to pay a professional hit man. She has also looked into a small group in the Jewish section of Brooklyn, New York. The members call themselves “Nokim”, which is Hebrew for “avengers.” They have been known to rough up some non-Jewish neighbors for crimes like stealing from Jews in the neighborhood or repeatedly blocking someone’s driveway. Several years ago, a pervert flashed a group of teenagers walking home from school. The girls did not call the police, but the Nokim. The next day, the guy ended up in the hospital. Jamie found them to be no more than an overzealous neighborhood watch, and unlikely suspects in her case.
At six o’clock, she leaves. The call did not come.
The next day, when she arrives at work she gets the call. Alfred Weiss, 89. She had personally talked to him six weeks earlier. Fredericks is going to go nuts. If there is anything good to come from this, maybe, just maybe, the others on the list will wake up and notice something. The list she received from the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations has one-hundred-and-thirty-two names. One hundred and thirty two that are still living in the United States and that have been investigated previously. She has tried to shrink the list, but it is impossible. Some of the previous victims were not even on the list. Hopefully this murder will convey the message: cooperate, or die!
Chapter 44
Cousin Edit from Prague had been sent to Auschwitz in 1942. By 1944, all members of her family had been killed. Most people did not survive Auschwitz more than several months. Edit spent three years in that hell. How did she survive for three years? Edit somehow befriended “Dr. Anna”, an Austrian Jewish physician. Dr. Anna worked directly with the famed Dr. Josef Mengele, doing his notorious medical experiments. He is also the one that did the “selections” when the transport of new inmates arrived. Edit worked in the “clinic.” She knew Mengele well and even called him by his first name. In the clinic, she received better food and lived in a cleaner environment, so she did not succumb to disease, like most.
Edit heard that transports were coming in from Kosice and actually received permission from Dr. Mengele himself to be near the platform when the trains arrived. She searched for relatives when the first two transports arrived, and found none.
The day our train arrived, there had been several other trains that same day, and the place was swarming with people. Edit could not find us. I was separated from my mother and grandparents. They were sent to the gas chambers that very day. My brother and I were selected for slave labor and were sent to different barracks.
I was taken to a room where I had to remove all of my clothing. Then all the hair of my body was shaved off. Then I was forced into a large shower for disinfecting.
After that, I was issued a striped prison uniform. Normally, I would have been taken to another barracks for tattooing. There were so many Jews arriving daily that it took several weeks for me to get registered and eventually tattooed. My number was, and is, A-14191.
Upon roll call, within a few days of finally being registered, Edit walked to one of the guards in the front and handed him a note. He called out my number, and I came forward. Edit said, “Walk with me, and do not say a word.” Edit was wearing a solid blue prison dress and not the striped uniform. She also did not have her head shaven, but wore a kerchief on her head. She took me to the clinic, where my brother was waiting. She said not to say a word when I see my brother. Edit gave us each a small piece of bread and then took us to “Canada.”
Canada was a section of Auschwitz, not far from the crematory, where they sorted the clothes of the new arrivals. It was called “Canada” because this is where they kept all the clothes and valuables they confiscated from those going to the gas chambers. Canada was dreamed to be a land of unsurpassed wealth.
Th
ere was also an area of Auschwitz called “Mexico”, which had the worst conditions. A lot of gypsies were sent there.
I was given a job as a clothes-sorter, and my brother hauled clothes from the anteroom of the crematory and brought them to be sorted.
The new arrivals that were selected for immediate death were told to fold their clothes neatly in a stack, and to put any valuables on top, so they would not be lost. It was really so the guards could confiscate the valuables easily.
I, and many other women, sorted the clothes by sizes, and they were then sent into Germany. We checked all pockets and seams for valuables. Occasionally I found something that I could get to Edit, and she would use it to barter for food. That is, if I felt I could hide it from the ever-watchful guards watching me work. If I had gotten caught, it would have been disastrous. The conditions in Canada were horrible, but much better than the rest of the camp. Easier work and a little bit better food. Edit would sneak us food regularly.
Once, I got typhus and was too weak to stand during roll call. Dr. Anna stood next to me and held me up so I wouldn’t get selected. We had roll call every day for hours.
We also had periodic selections, and being in Canada did not offer any immunity. Once, after my bout with typhus, I was selected and placed in a line. Edit stepped forward and grabbed another inmate and switched us. When that inmate cried out in protest, a guard came over and smacked her with his club. I was saved, and that inmate, who was actually physically stronger, went to the gas chamber. Hard to imagine, but true.
The Esther Code Page 26